Aiming to test other waters, lobster council chief resigns

Langostino?

Kristen Millar knows what it is.

The CIA? If you’re talking about the Culinary Institute of America, Millar has become familiar with that, too.

And Red Sox slugger David Ortiz?

Nope. It was another Maine Lobster Promotion Council staffer, not Millar, who got to drive to Fenway park last summer to deliver 41 lobsters to Big Papi.

Despite not meeting Ortiz, Millar’s tenure as the council’s executive director has involved a lot more than telling the world how good lobster tastes. During her four years in the job, she’s done a lot of market research and, as a result, has taken some high-profile positions on issues that affect Maine’s $275 million lobster industry.

But Millar, who will get an MBA from Boston University in June, has decided to move on. The Freeport resident will leave the post next month to work for a food industry management consulting firm in Portland.

“I think my job is the best marketing job in the state of Maine,” Millar, 35, said Monday. “It was a hard decision [to leave]. My dad was a lobsterman. I grew up on a lobster boat.”

There are many issues Millar has taken up while leading the advocacy group, which is funded entirely through fees paid by licensed Maine lobster dealers and fishermen.

She has worked to educate consumers about the differences between genuine lobster and langostino, a small crustacean that has been passed off to consumers as the real deal. She has spoken out against legislation that lobstermen have opposed, such as allowing fishing trawlers to land lobster bycatch in Maine.

And, with research data to back it up, she has promoted programs aimed at strengthening the “brand” of Maine lobster and at meeting consumer demands.

“I’m really excited about what we’ve done at the council,” Millar said. “[Market research] is what it’s all about. It’s about knowing your customer, knowing what they want and giving them what they want.”

One of the more public stances Millar and MLPC have taken recently was against the Whole Foods supermarket chain. Millar took the food retailer to task earlier this year for requiring unusual packing techniques for lobster sold at its new Portland store and for contracting with a New Hampshire firm to supply the crustaceans.

“She’s done a good job,” Boothbay lobsterman Clive Farrin said Tuesday. Farrin is president of the Down East Lobstermen’s Association and serves on the promotion council’s nine-seat board.

“I think we’re going to miss her,” he said. “It will be hard to find someone to fill her shoes.”

Farrin said the market research championed by Millar led to the council’s introduction of the Certified Maine Lobster program, which is geared to demand for lobster from Maine. Launched last year, the program encourages dealers to use special tags as proof to consumers that the lobster they eat are from Maine.

“The biggest thing she worked on was getting that going,” Farrin said.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe, who holds a nonvoting seat on the MLPC board, said Tuesday that Millar has helped bring a new marketing sensitivity to the council.

“She’s been great,” Lapointe said. “She pushed people to think about the current marketplace.”

The council has always done things such as go to seafood trade shows, the commissioner said, but Millar’s interest in market research led the council to do things it had not done before. Encouraging development of new lobster products was one result, he said. Getting the state’s lobster fishery certified as sustainable was another.

Lapointe said that finding new ways to market and sell lobster can help maximize the economic benefit yielded by the lobster resource in the Gulf of Maine without putting a greater burden on the resource, which scientists believe remains healthy despite a decline in landings this past year.

“We want to work on the market side and make it as economically viable as possible,” he said.

Other initiatives the council has pursued include awarding scholarships to help send Maine students off to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., to become chefs. The council’s research indicates that 75 percent of lobster caught in Maine is sold to restaurants, according to Millar.

Council research also revealed that of the Maine lobster that is processed into other food products, as much as 60 percent of it goes to Canada and comes back labeled “product of Canada.” This discovery led to the creation last year of Shucks Maine Lobster, a Richmond company that uses a novel high-pressure water system to separate lobster meat virually intact from the shell. The packaged, raw lobster meat made by the firm also helps address the market demand for more convenient lobster products, Millar said.

Dr. Bob Bayer of the University of Maine Lobster Institute said Tuesday that he thought Millar has done “a fine job.” He suggested that going forward, the personnel change might give the council the chance to work more cooperatively with other fishing industry groups, such as the salmon industry or with shrimp fishermen.

But Lapointe, who did not bring up any need for greater cooperation, said he likes the direction the promotion council has taken under Millar. He said that whoever takes the council’s reins needs to continue to do the type of research and marketing spearheaded by the outgoing executive director.

“They’ll pay significant benefits in the long term,” he said.