A state-funded marketing council is expanding its new-shell lobster crusade to focus on courting the fishmongers who sell seafood, not just the chefs who cook it.
The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative plans to appoint a celebrity spokesman, submit a trademark application and create a seasonal calendar to persuade the middlemen of the seafood supply chain to carry Maine soft-shell lobster, which accounts for 80 percent of the state’s annual lobster landings and is deemed by some of the nation’s best-known food bloggers to be sweeter and more tender than hard-shell lobsters fished in Canada.
“We’ve spent four years teaching chefs and consumers about what makes new shell different and special, what makes it a delicacy,” director Matt Jacobson said. “We’re saying new shell, new shell, new shell. We teach, they listen and soon they’re saying it, too. But wanting it’s not enough. They need to be able to buy it. If their supplier doesn’t carry Maine new shell, all the education in the world can’t get Maine new shell on that chef’s menu.”
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