SPRUCE HEAD — The European fondness for lobster makes for Christmas joy in Maine.
Europeans have always had a love affair with shellfish, and thanks to modern packaging methods and jet transportation, lobsters have become a staple on holiday tables all over Europe.
Flights loaded with Maine lobsters leave Boston and New York every day for destinations such as Brussels, Rome, Frankfurt and Paris. It is estimated that more than 150 tons of live, hard-shell lobster will have made the Atlantic crossing by the time the holiday rush is over.
“It’s quite a big market for Christmas and New Year’s, I figure, 200,000-300,000 pounds,” Bob Brown of the Maine Import/Export Lobster Dealers Association estimated last week. “One dealer did confide in me that he had orders for 25 containers for this season, and I have heard stories about other dealers who join together to get shipping volume.”
At William Atwood Lobster Co. in Spruce Head, a crew was hard at work Sunday packing a few of those containers. Each container holds 2,200 pounds of live lobsters, and the Atwood crew has been sending a steady supply of containers to European destinations since early this month. Owner Bill Atwood said the push to get lobsters overseas in time for New Year’s would continue until late Tuesday.
Atwood estimated the “bulge” in lobster exports to Europe during the weeks leading up to New Year’s as being three or four times the normal level.
“It’s big,” said Atwood. “There is a big demand in the European countries as a whole. There is an opportunity to move a lot of lobsters. The only difficulty is getting them there.”
Although they are packed in insulated containers and kept chilled with frozen gel-packs, lobsters are still a perishable commodity. Getting them overseas is contingent on finding space on flights headed in that direction. Passengers and mail take priority on commercial flights, and there are plenty of both during the holidays.
Atwood said a truckload of lobsters can sit on the airport tarmac for, at most, three days. Then the shipment must be recalled.
“That’s the big drawback, when we have to go get them, take them back and repack them for another day. I’ve had 15,000 pounds come back. And once you miss a delivery, you can’t get it back. People won’t buy their holiday lobster if it’s not in the store the day they want it. They’ll buy something else.”
But when they do reach the store, Maine’s favorite crustacean gets snapped up in a hurry. State Department public affairs spokesman Bill Barrett grew up in New England, and during his recent posting in Paris liked nothing better than the weeks before Noel and Jour de l’An. That’s when Christmas lights are spread across the city and Maine lobsters start appearing in shops and restaurants from the four-star version to the small, family-run brasseries.
Barrett, who served as senior adviser to the U.S. ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn, recalled market stalls a few yards from his home on Rue de Tocqueville piled high with lobsters during the season. Barrett also conducted business in London, and found lobsters gaining in popularity there as well.
“I was surprised when I went to Paris at how often I would find lobster on the menu,” Barrett recalled last week, speaking from Washington, D.C. “I would see them at my fishmonger’s and I remember one restaurant, the Pig’s Foot, that featured a five-course dinner, every course lobster. Being a New Englander, it certainly made me feel a little bit more at home having all that lobster around at Christmas. It’s emblematic of the coast.”
Aggressive marketing and promotion are at the source of the lobster’s popularity in Europe and, to a lesser extent, Asia. Susan Barber, director of the Maine Lobster Promotion Council, said the lobster agency’s focus on seafood shows and U.S. Department of Agriculture trade missions have helped expand product awareness around the globe. She said the council’s decision to form close links with the American Seafood Institute’s market access program has been a boon to the industry.
Lobster exports have been increasing since 1992, Barber said, and export sales during 1999 are almost $49 million over the previous year.
Barber also credited the state’s attendance at the annual European Seafood Exposition in Brussels as helping to give Maine lobster a leg up on the competition.
“It surpasses any other seafood show in the world,” Barber said. “It is far bigger than Boston and brings in buyers from everywhere.”
And Bill Barrett is glad a lot of buyers went home to France with visions of lobster dancing in their heads. One of those Christmas lobsters provided a lasting memory for a diplomat far from home.
“It’s a big thing around the holidays and the wintertime in general,” Barrett said. “Lobster is a very common item on the menus of Paris this time of year, a lot more than you’ll see in America.”
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