Northern lobster processor setting up Maine facility
CBC News
Posted: Sep 7, 2012 7:08 AM AT
Last Updated: Sep 7, 2012 8:15 AM AT
Lobster fishermen protested cheap lobster prices in August. Those protests have caused a New Brunswick processor to open a Maine facility. (CBC)Nearly two weeks of protests by lobster fishermen outside of eastern New Brunswick lobster processing plants is causing one business owner to set up a new facility in Maine.
In August, New Brunswick fishermen blockaded lobster processing plants over deliveries of cheap American lobster.
An oversupply of U.S. lobster had driven prices down to a 30-year low of $2 per pound, while fishermen were seeking prices of $4 per pound.
Nine processors won a court-ordered injunction to halt the blockades in August.
For the past three years, Frank Benoit, the owner of the Pêcheries de Chez-Nous plant in Val-Comeau, said he's had to buy some of his lobster from Rockland, Me.
Benoit said he believes setting up the Maine facility is a way of protecting his overall business.
"Because I got a big business down in New Brunswick, and I don't want to lose that,” he said.
“So I said to myself, I might as well buy a building here, and process here, and at least that way they cannot stop me crossing the border, because I got a processing plant in the U.S., and I have one in Canada, so I could bring my lobster from the U.S. to Canada."
Benoit said he still needs to get different permits but hopes to be operating in Rockland by the end of the month.
Benoit said the season in Maine lasts longer and he was nervous he would not be able to get product over the border.
The protests in August have also caused Americans to look at boosting their lobster processing capacity.
Two of Maine's three lobster processors met with Paul LePage, the state's governor, in August and suggested a plan to increase processing capabilities.
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