Table 8. — Cost rates, as percentage of price margin, at different market levels. 



Retail; 



Supermarket' 

 Wholesale: 



Food and kindred 



products- 

 Northern lobster 

 Give)" 

 Processing: 



Fresh and frozen 



packaged fish^ 



Canned and cured 



seafoods^ 

 Food and kindred 



products' 

 Peeled shrimp-' 

 Blue crab meat^ 

 Wholesale and 

 processing combined: 

 Scallop and oyster' 



lOO.O 



20.2 



13.2 



9.6 



45.0 



12.0 



' Published by Supermarket Institute. Inc., 1965. 



- Buiiness income tax return statistics. Internal Revenue Service. 1967. 



' Derived from IheJuiiit master plan for tlie nortlwrn lobster fishery . Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, U.S. Department of the Interior. 

 April 1970. 



' Census oj manufactures, U.S. Department of Commerce. 1967. 



' Survey of t lie United States shrimp industry. Volume I. By Branch of Economics, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. 1954. U.S. Dep. 

 Inter., Fish Wildl. Serv.. Spec. Sci. Rep. Fish. 277, 311 p. Figures were readjusted after discussing with the industry. 



" Derived from the discussion with the staff in the Branch of Shellfish Products, Division of Current Economic Analysis. National Marine 

 Fisheries Service, U.S. Department of Commerce. 



" Derived from figures and information given in Culture, handliiii;. and processin.i: of Pacific coast oysters. Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries. U.S. Department of the Interior. 1960. 



Study is also found in Table 1 1. The reader is also 

 referred to Appendix Tables 25 through 38 where 

 the same information is shown in terms of cents 

 per pound of sales rather than percent of a con- 

 sumer food dollar. 



Prices of shellfish are generally higher than 

 those of finfish products on a meat weight basis. 

 Higher priced products enjoy higher profit in 

 monetary terms but lower profit rate against sales 

 in relative terms. This applies to shellfish prod- 

 ucts. Conversely, profit rates for finfish products 

 generally ranked higher, but actual price on a per 

 pound basis is lower than those for shellfish 

 products. 



CONCLUSIONS 



The fisherman's share and the markups at differ- 

 ent marketing levels of different fish products over 



the period analyzed showed either up or down trends 

 at various degrees. The striking feature is the rela- 

 tive frequency of increasing trends at the 

 fisherman's level compared to other levels as shown 

 in Table 12. Of 11 products, four indicated signifi- 

 cantly increasing trends over time and two, moder- 

 ately. A greater percent of processors showed an 

 upward trend in markups than wholesalers, and there 

 were only three cases that showed slightly increasing 

 markups at the retail level. It is reasonable to con- 

 clude that the price rise is more restrained at the 

 retail and wholesale levels than at the processing and 

 harvesting levels in later years. This does not imply 

 that the operation at one level is necessarily more 

 efficient than the other by comparing the sizes or 

 trends of their markups. 



Dividing each price spread into margins at differ- 

 ent functional levels and breaking each margin down 

 into component costs and profits to examine them in 



18 



