All the investment we've made and all the innovations we've brought to the table, including the dry land pound, an MRI machine that tells you how much meat is in the animal, blood-protein testing, and banding the lobsters, and all the markets we've developed in Asia, Japan, China, Europe, and the Middle East, are frustrated by the fact that we have absolutely no control over our landed cost or supply.
Secondly, and just as bad, there is absolutely no control over landed quality. To a fisherman, a lobster is a lobster. He sells it by weight. It doesn't matter if it's soft, weak, a cull, or the ugliest 10- to 20-pound jumbo you have ever seen. It is all money to him. Unfortunately, to a customer and the consumers, it does make a difference.
Consumers are looking for a perfectly formed and sized one- to two-pound lobster on their plate. Although we have tried to influence quality by educating our fishermen through our lobster university, you can't blame them when they say, “Why should we care about quality when my uncle who fishes in the next cove is getting paid the same with half the effort and he lands everything that crawls into his traps?”
A third and equally frustrating problem with the industry is that as soon as we develop a new market of customers, the well-intentioned staff of Canada's trade department lets it be known to all and sundry who ask for the information, and they immediately send out a price list saying, “We're cheaper than Clearwater.”
An indication of how important landed quality and handling practices are to the industry can be seen in the oft-quoted numbers of the industry mortality. Fifteen per cent of all the lobsters caught each year go to the garbage can instead of going to the market. That's 15 million pounds and roughly $150 million worth of value, all because of bad handling practices
I'd swear the industry is structured so that it is a race to the bottom. If it weren't so tragic, I would say it was the stuff of a Monty Python movie. Don't take me wrong; I'm not bitching about the industry being unfair to Clearwater. It isn't unfair, and even if it is, I was a big boy when I got in and when we made all our investments. We entered the game with our eyes open.
We came to the lobster industry bound and determined to make a difference, to be a force, and to chart a new direction, whether it is the new markets we have developed in Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, the U.S., or Canada, or our use of science to develop the techniques of health determinants through blood-protein testing or our patented mini-MRI system, our dry land pound technology, our high-pressured shucking of raw lobster, or simply our lobster university and the use of elastic bands to immobilize lobster claws. Everyone at Clearwater is extremely proud of the difference we have made through our industry leadership and our global reputation for supplying our customers with finest quality lobsters.
Here are my suggestions for solutions.
One, you do not want to do more of the same. I believe it was Albert Einstein who said something to the effect that it is a fool who keeps repeating the same things expecting a different result.
Two, we need to change the industry structure to encourage investment, not by government, but by the industry participants--those who stand to gain by the investment. At the moment that appears to be limited to the fishermen. But it could quickly shift to the entire industry if the same limited entry was afforded to the buying side, with rules covering volume so you would limit the buyers on the shore so it would become a viable investment for the enterprise.
Although seen as anathema by the fishermen, apply a quota. This would go a long way to controlling periods of either oversupply or undersupply to the market, and it would provide pricing consistency. An example is the west coast halibut fishery.
And outlaw culls and big ugly jumbos over six pounds. This would immediately make every landed lobster more valuable and more precious. It would limit waste and improve handling dramatically, as many culls are created by handling after the animal is caught. It would also add to the reproductive base of the animal.
Ensure that the fishermen pay for all government programs through a tax-per-pound on lobsters landed. This would go a long way to changing their attitude of disrespect for DFO and science. I have often heard them say that they want responsibility for the industry. Give it to them, and make them fund it. It will become much more meaningful.
Similarly, if you're hell-bent on a marketing program, then the fishermen should support it with a per-pound charge. They are the ones who will ultimately reap the benefits.
In thinking about what the solutions should be, I think we all have to ask ourselves what the end gain is. I believe it is to sell the precious Canadian resource for the most dollars possible, while respecting the animal's right to live and ensuring our harvesting practices are sustainable. Then let those dollars come back to work in Canada.
We are not doing this now. I contend that not only is the resource being callously wasted by mismanagement and bad handling, it's being given away in the market for lack of a disciplined and principled approach to delivering on the promise to the customer, and because no one is guarding the reputation of the lobsters, especially those who have the most to lose.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to stop finding excuses for our failure and start to take actions that will ensure success. I, with some trepidation, say that the ball is still in your court. Please stop and think carefully before you return the ball. We can either craft a new, sustainable industry that delivers on its promise or we can cut another large chunk out of the lobster's reputation and population.
Good luck. I encourage you to have the courage to do what is right, although it may not be popular to the industry.