New Hampshire Lobster Boats Stay Afloat With Direct Sales
PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire--The streets and garages in this popular seaside town are eerily quiet these days. But on a recent Monday afternoon, the parking lot of Portsmouth's commercial fishing pier was jammed. Dozens of customers from around the region, armed with coolers, freezer cartons and plastic garbage bags, struggled to maintain social distance while they awaited the day's catch from the F/V Last Penny, a licensed lobster boat based here. And no one seemed more surprised by the crowd than Gary Glidden and his son-in-law Jake Eaton, the owners and operators of the boat.
Typically, Glidden and Eaton sell their catch to a local wholesale dealer that specializes in overseas sales. But that market has evaporated in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. And with restaurants shuttered and cruise ships docked, even the domestic lobster market has tanked. For many lobstermen, that's meant unemployment and unpaid bills. Facing a similar fate, Eaton and his wife Mackenzie (who is also Glidden's daughter) decided to take matters into their own hands.
They posted a query on a community Facebook page on March 20th, asking if anyone might be interested in buying lobsters directly from the boat. Mackenzie says they were hoping for maybe 20 responses -- enough to stave off creditors and help pay bills. Within days, they had more than 3,000 requests.
"We have no idea how this happened, but we are so incredibly grateful for the support," she says. "These people are literally saving us."
Lobster is a perennial billions dollar industry for the Gulf of Maine, which runs from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod. In New Hampshire, the crustaceans comprise about 70% of the state's approximately $20 million seafood industry. In neighboring Maine, lobsters net over $500 million a year in sales and have an overall industry impact of about $1.5 billion dollars annually. It's also an industry that's been especially hard hit by the pandemic, says Kyle Foley, senior program manager for sustainable seafood at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.
Each January and February, New England lobstermen rely upon exports to Asia for the Chinese New Year and Europe for Valentine's Day. The coronavirus, already well entrenched in places like China and Italy, effectively cancelled those sales this year. Domestically, the vast majority of lobsters are sold to restaurants and cruise ships. The pandemic has halted those revenue streams, too, Foley says.
"We are experiencing an unprecedented market drop," Foley says. "Fishermen live on thin margins as it is, but this is a particularly scary time for them. I think everyone is very nervous."
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Luke Holden, founder and CEO of Luke's Lobster, agrees. In a typical year, his company buys about 5 million pounds of lobster. With nearly all of his 26 nationwide shacks closed due to the virus and the others trying to make a go of take-out sales, Holden says the impact of the virus has already been profound for the 500 or so lobstermen he works with.
"It's a fisherman's worst nightmare," Holden says.
For its part, Luke's Lobster has pivoted toward e-commerce, shipping live lobsters and prepared products such as bisque and lobster mac and cheese nationwide.
"It's a huge shift for us, but we felt like we had take responsibility and support both our employees and the lobstermen we depend upon," Holden says.
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For Gary Glidden and his family, that support has come from the larger community. Each day he and Eaton are able to check their traps, Mackenzie posts a notification on the boat's Facebook page. Within minutes -- and sometimes seconds -- they have more orders than they can fill. A full-time, stay-at-home mom, she's rescheduled her days to accommodate the flood of inquiries.
Karen Langmaid was one of the 30 customers picking up lobsters from the F/V Last Penny on Monday. She says she was shut out multiple times before she was able to snag four lobsters for herself and her elderly parents.
"But the competition has become part of the fun," Langmaid says. "And I love knowing I can help support a local business."
Jenn Forest is the owner of Half-a-Penny Farm in nearby Barnstead, New Hampshire. She and her family raise Angus beef there. She says that a friend alerted her to the Last Penny initiative. She was struck by the coincidence of the two business names, so she contacted Glidden and asked if he would consider a barter. She arrived on Monday with 30 pounds of meat in exchange for six lobsters. Glidden tried to persuade her to take more, but Forest said she felt good about the trade.
The Eatons' two young children, both under age 6, were particularly excited about the prospect of hamburgers for dinner.
"People are taking such good care of us," Jake Eaton says. "It's amazing to see that there's still a place for the old Yankee economy, even in times of such hardship."
Kathryn Miles is a Maine-based journalist and the author of four books, including "Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake."
