One hundred P.E.I. fishermen have put up $1,000 each to own a share in a new company they hope will help turn the lobster industry around, but the man behind it says a lot more need to sign up to make it work.

'If I don't see any dividends, what am I really out?'— Patrick Eastman, lobster fisherman

Eric Wagner, a fishermen from Tyne Valley, held his fourth meeting Thursday to try to convince lobster fishermen to invest in PEI Premium Seafoods. He met with three dozen fishermen Naufrage and North Lake harbours in South Lake.

"Who's going to fix this other than us?" he asked them.

"Let's us, as a group, own a company that are hiring the marketers that are working for us, so it benefits us."

Lobster fishermen are coming off a season that saw the lowest prices at the wharf since 1989. Wagner believes if lobster fishermen are going to make a good living they're going to have to have more control over the business. He thinks a fishermen-owned company that sells a specially branded lobster is the answer, following in the successful branding of Malpeque oysters and Prince Edward Island blue mussels.

Marketing the lobster themselves will give fishermen a better price, figures Eric Wagner. (CBC)

The plan is for PEI Premium Seafoods to find customers before the fishing season opens. They would pay for orders up front, and in return customers get lobster processed the way they want when they want them.

To do that, PEI Premium Seafoods will need the co-operation of a processing company, something several fishermen at the meeting think is unlikely. Wagner doesn't think processors' co-operation will be a problem.

"I don't want to say we're going to strong arm them, but listen, honest to God, there's nobody else. If we don't fish these lobsters they don't have any," he said.

Patrick Eastman is one of 15 fishermen at the meeting who invested. He knows it's risky, but figures he has little to lose.

"If I don't see any dividends, what am I really out? I probably lost 20 or 25 times that this year just in the low price," he said.

Wagner said he needs at least half of Island fishermen to sign up to make a go of it, leaving him 500 more fishermen to convince to make the investment in his idea.