IX 



Marketing 



The marketing of lobsters has shown little change in 

 one hundred years. The exceptions are the lobstermen's 

 cooperatives, the specialty selling, such as Salt Water Farm, 

 airplane shipments, artificial sea water, and the search for 

 new means of preserving lobster meat. It is time to take a 

 long hard look at some of the outgrown practices of the 

 industry. 



Marketing covers many phases of lobstering other than 

 selling. Included are: 



1. Moving lobsters to consumers in the desired 

 form and conditions at the lowest possible cost 



2. Making a living for lobstermen and dealers, 

 through a reasonable return for the money and effort 

 expended 



3. Finding new markets, new lobster products, or 

 more of the old products. 



The lobsterman himself is directly involved in only the 

 second function; for the others he has to depend on someone 

 else. He often overlooks this dependence, and resents the 

 added expense—" The lobster I sell for 70 cents ends up in a 

 restaurant on a $4.00 dinner, or in a fish market for $1.50." 



What determines the price? Supply and demand, of 

 course. The daily (blue) lobster price bulletin put out in 

 Boston by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries, is a factor, as is the green sheet pub- 

 lished in New York. It is based on inquiries among many 

 lobster wholesalers as to what they are paying that day and 

 is intended to be a representative cross-section of lobster 

 prices in New England. The prices on the green sheet are 

 for lobsters landed in New York and are about 10c per 

 pound higher than F.O.B. Maine. 



The morning telephone gossip among buyers is probably 

 the biggest factor in arriving at a price. They learn that Joe 



