In December, the meat of the lobster export season, David Deveau’s days are usually chock full of orders to his major markets in Japan and Korea.
But a confluence of factors have collided to create conditions that have Deveau staring at his worst December on record.
Deveau, CEO of Riverside Lobster & Seafood Inc., out of Meteghan River, said he is on pace to move 75 per cent less lobster than in previous years.
“Last year was not good, and this year is scary,” said Deveau, who has been in the industry for 16 years.
Several weeks into the six-month lobster season have yielded a record haul of supply, flooding the market with millions more pounds than usual.
Earlier this month, lobster buyers banded together to ask Fisheries and Oceans Canada to temporarily close southwestern Nova Scotia’s lobster season for a 72-hour period.
The abundance of supply has caused prices to drop to $3 a pound.
Deveau said while volumes are up, the quality of the catch is not as good as in previous years, meaning he is limited in how far he can ship his product.
“We have more volume than we would like. There’s too many soft shells in the volume coming in. And in a high percentage of our catch, the low blood proteins are creating problems (finding) destinations, as we ship overseas.”
In addition, a dearth of available capacity at Halifax Stanfield International Airport “is a huge problem,” forcing him to seek alternative routes to ship his product.
“We need to ship through the U.S. airports and truck to Toronto and so forth, but, again, there is a percentage of lobster that are not as strong as before so it creates problems that they do not make it.”
Nova Scotia lobster fishermen aren’t the only ones hauling in record numbers.
“Maine is fishing more than ever,” Deveau said. “Maine has as good a product as us right now, and they have a lot better (transportation) logistics from their airports in Boston and New York.”
Michael Wolthers, of Kintetsu World Express Inc., organizes lobster flights out of Gateway Facilities ULC at the Halifax airport. He said there is at least 425,000 kilograms more capacity to export than in previous years.
Korean Airlines is sending in two 747s, and Cargojet and TNT are also running flights out of the airport. On Wednesday, one plane will carry as many as 117,000 kilograms of lobsters, with similar shipments leaving Dec. 21, 26, 27 and possibly the 28th.
“There is that much more capacity this month than there was this month last year,” Wolthers said. “There’s all kinds of extra flying going on so it’s really made things a lot easier for us to get our product to market without a lot of time trucking it to Montreal and Toronto.”
However, Deveau said that’s less cargo availability than he’s seen in previous Decembers.
“We do have a couple of big ones coming. But there’s three freighters coming, while I’ve seen usually 10 or 12 of them in the month.”
The airport recently completed work to extend its main runway to 3,150 metres from 2,640 metres, adding incentive for companies to send larger cargo planes, Wolthers said.
“The aircraft that are coming in are much more interested in coming in with that longer runway. And also the longer runway allows us an extra 10 per cent more lift on every flight so it makes a difference, for sure.”
Demand in European markets like France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as Asian destinations in Japan and Korea, has remained steady.
“It’s about the same as it was last year, possibly a little bit better because prices are a little lower because there’s a lot more lobsters around this year, it seems,” Wolthers said.
“But it’s pretty much what we expect — lots of capacity and lots of availability.”
