Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Bomb. Here in US, lobsters sold for ten
Speaker 1: to twelve dollars a pound, a price range that reflects
Speaker 1: lobster being a luxury in our minds and culture. It's
Speaker 1: on the menu at fine dining restaurants, in pricey steakhouses,
Speaker 1: and in the best New England summer shacks and sandwich shops.
Speaker 1: A lobster role can sell for as much as seventy dollars.
Speaker 1: But lobster hasn't always been expensive, and current political and
Speaker 1: trade policies are not only changing its prices, they're hurting
Speaker 1: the US lobster business a long term it may impact
Speaker 1: how we even think about the lobster itself. Back in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, when America was still a bunch of colonies,
Speaker 1: colonists wrote about lobsters in the New England area weighing
Speaker 1: sixteen to twenty five pounds that's seven to just over
Speaker 1: eleven kilograms. Some of the largest weighed twice that and
Speaker 1: grew four to six feet that's one to two meters long.
Speaker 1: And there were so many lobsters that there claims that
Speaker 1: the shellfish would wash up knee deep on Massachusetts shores.
Speaker 1: Lobster was so abundant it wasn't worth anything. Really. Colonists
Speaker 1: considered lobster cheap eats. It's what you'd eat when there
Speaker 1: was nothing else and you didn't want to starve. It
Speaker 1: was foisted off on indentured servants, enslaved people, and prisoners,
Speaker 1: even pigs. Everyone was embarrassed about eating it. Oysters, by
Speaker 1: the way, fell into the same category. Colonists did, however,
Speaker 1: see lobster as a resource. It was plentiful, cheap, and
Speaker 1: they could make money from it by shipping it back
Speaker 1: to Europe. The Dutch had come up with a way
Speaker 1: of transport lobster across the Atlantic and keep it fresh.
Speaker 1: Organized lobster fisheries opened in Maine in the mid eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and lobster canning businesses started and flourished. Near the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, main lobster men were landing more than
Speaker 1: eleven thousand tons of the critters, and lobster wasn't just
Speaker 1: crossing the ocean, but also the nation thanks to the
Speaker 1: railroad industry, onboard dining and inland restaurants, where lobster was
Speaker 1: served to new audiences as a side dish or salon ingredient.
Speaker 1: The experience of dining on a railcar or enjoying seafood
Speaker 1: far from a coast helped turn lobster into a luxury
Speaker 1: day ish. Over fishing at the beginning of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century drove prices up, as did conservation laws in the
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century. Long term, the supply of lobster has
Speaker 1: been going up. Those conservation laws worked, and Maine has
Speaker 1: had a lobster boom that took landings from eighteen million
Speaker 1: pounds that's eight million kilograms in nineteen fifty to nearly
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty one million pounds or sixty million
Speaker 1: kilograms in twenty sixteen. Main's lobster industry, the largest in
Speaker 1: the United States, contributes one point for billion dollars to
Speaker 1: the state's economy every year. And that's a good thing too,
Speaker 1: because in recent years, lobster industry representatives from Maine have
Speaker 1: built international demand for their products, and China has been
Speaker 1: poised to purchase significant amounts of lobster. In the first
Speaker 1: two quarters of twenty seventeen, China imported thirty nine point
Speaker 1: five million dollars worth of live lobster. The best year
Speaker 1: to date, and between January and June of eighteen, the
Speaker 1: US sold eighty seven million dollars in live lobster to China.
Speaker 1: But the dollar signs that people in Main's lobster industry
Speaker 1: we're seeing finished. After the Trump administration imposed tariffs that
Speaker 1: caused China to retaliate with tariffs of its own, including
Speaker 1: a tariff on US lobster. The impact of the tariffs
Speaker 1: is dramatic. In June, live lobster exports to China topped
Speaker 1: eleven point eight million dollars. In July, the first month
Speaker 1: under the new tariffs, exports to China dropped to four
Speaker 1: point two million dollars, lower than the amount shipped in
Speaker 1: July the year before. The Chinese and Canadians have even
Speaker 1: created a workaround. As Canada's supply goes through its seasonal drop,
Speaker 1: they're buying US lobster and selling it to China. We
Speaker 1: spoke with John Sackton, editor and publisher of Seafood News,
Speaker 1: via email. He said the US lobster industry is at
Speaker 1: an extreme disadvantage with international trade right now, as we
Speaker 1: face tariffs in Europe and China, while the Canadians don't.
Speaker 1: This means the US must look for niche markets like
Speaker 1: Singapore or Korea. With the US supply higher than it's
Speaker 1: ever been and China's demands suddenly dropping to below levels,
Speaker 1: you might think law stir may become painfully abundant and cheap,
Speaker 1: But the U s economy is strong and lobster industry
Speaker 1: experts say there's not only opportunity, but workarounds. Sacton said,
Speaker 1: what is happening to lobster prices is unclear because there
Speaker 1: are many contradictory factors. Maine has lost the ability to
Speaker 1: ship lobsters to China, but on the other hand, demand
Speaker 1: for lobster tail is very strong and these are processed
Speaker 1: in Canada, so there's continued strong demand from processors for
Speaker 1: main lobster. So will we see a shift in the
Speaker 1: price and culture of lobster? Sacton reported that the industry
Speaker 1: was waiting to see how live lobster prices fared over
Speaker 1: the holiday season, and that their strategies might change accordingly.
Speaker 1: But we wonder whether culture is as flexible as the market.
Speaker 1: Would you buy a nick lobster? Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Sean Chavis and produced by Tyler Clang. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other Wicked Wesson topics, visit
Speaker 1: our home planet, how stuff Works dot com