September 2011

The Lobster Council is seeking support for a 1-cent investment (1/2 to come from Lobster Fishermen and 1/2 from processors and live shippers).

What will the Lobster Council do with the money collected via the one cent investment?

• Begin the application process with Agri-food Canada to access the Agri-Marketing Program (AMP) to match industry funding for international marketing
• Develop a domestic and international marketing/promotion plan for Canadian lobster
• Develop a dynamic brand for Canadian lobster
• Continue the working group phase of the Long-term Value Strategy to determine where reform can practically take place on marketability issues such as quality grading and price setting
• Hire the appropriate personnel to professionally manage the projects and priorities of the Lobster Council (bilingual communications personnel, project co-ordinators)

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December 2010

Lobster Council's Long Term Value Strategy for Canadian Lobster was recently released and is available for Downloading or viewing.here. The LFA27 Management Board asked its Executive Director, Geoff Irvine, to write a very short summary for the benefit of its members:

General

1. Strategy represents a tipping point in thinking (we need to think bigger and better as an industry);

2.  The reports main theme is how do we increase the overall value of the resource and share equitably;

3.    We must synchronize and co-ordinate efforts

 Marketing

1.   We must market our competitive edge (largest supplier of lobster in the world but we don’t act like we are)

2.   Develop a Canadian brand

3.   Develop generic marketing programs

4.   Focus on major US cities

5.   Focus on domestic Canadian market initially to grow the brand

6.   Focus on Honk Kong, South Korea, China in Asia

7.   Chef education and promotion in Europe

8.   Use layered media (social, mainstream, print, earned)

Marketability

1.   We must get the structure right

2. Price setting mechanism sets the stage for everything else (people, product, place, positioning, price, channels)

3.   Quality grading supports the brand

4.   Better manage supply flow (planning and pricing) – note recommendations are targeted trap limits to smooth out landings

5.   Expand quality buyers, create demand for quality

Specifically the structural recommendations are as follows:

• Supply – reduce # of traps during peak landings
• Price – contract/collaborative approach to shore price setting
• Quality – develop quality standards
• Structure – reduce capacity in harvesting and processing/live shipping

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November 2010

The Lobster Council of Canada has posted the proceedings from the Cheticamp Traceability and Certification Conference on its website. See their news page.

June 2010

The Lobster Council of Canada has published it's first monthly newsletter.
You can download a copy here. It includes:

• DFO stats on landed price and volume by LFA for 2009 and 2010 for all Atlantic Provinces.
  
• A graph which compares Nova Scotia shore price vs US wholesale price from 1998 to 2010 (the gap is actually narrowing!)
• Funding issues for the Lobster Council
• Eco-certification updates
• ALSM update from the provinces
• Market prices (and a neat graph on Lobster supply and price from 2007-2009).