A week before the start of the snow crab fishing season, processors in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia agreed Friday on a tentative port price of $2.25/lb to $2.50/lb depending on whether the resource is in an ice room is kept or a water tank on board fishing vessels.
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Information from Boston, the center of the market, reports a price drop of more than half over the past year.
5- to 8-ounce shrimp trimmings, which were worth $16 a pound in January 2022, are now trading at between $5.75 and $6 a pound as large amounts of product remain in inventory.
“There is more stock on the market right now than we thought,” said Jean-Paul Gagné, director general of the Quebec Fisheries Association (AQIP). In Florida not long ago they were selling 2021 crabs. And in Boston they have so many crabs in stock that they’re gone that they have to stock them in Chicago. We’ve never seen that before!”
Recall that at the beginning of the 2022 season, the price of snow crab in Atlantic Canada fluctuated between $8.25 and $8.75/lb and then successively increased to $7.50/lb and $6/lb.
“Last year we had a disastrous season for processors and it doesn’t look like we’ll be operating in deficit for the second year in a row,” argues Mr Gagné. It’s not just about running deficits, there’s also the question of banks becoming more cautious.
The provisional price will be maintained throughout the season and adjusted upwards at the end of the season if market conditions permit and depending on the capacity of each buyer, for his part Gilles Thériault, President of the Brunswick Shrimp Processors Association, specifies.
“However, should the market continue to fall, the price could be corrected lower during the season. We don’t think so and we don’t want to, but we’re limiting the risk,” he said.
For his part, the captain of the Marc-Olivier des Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Marco Turbide, assures that he will put his cages back this spring.
“Expect a price of just two or three dollars a pound, that doesn’t give ambition,” he comments. It’s no fun. For fishermen who, like me, are heavily in debt and made significant losses last year on unpaid shrimp, profitability is unlikely in 2023. If we had settled on $4/pound I would be very happy !”
Hélène Fauteux/Agency QMI
Cap Adèle captain Marcel Cormier agrees crabs were overpriced last year amid the slump in demand at landings.
“And so there’s something left,” he said. That’s what happens. But even if the price of crabs goes down, the prices of fuel, boats, food, and materials won’t go down. It won’t be a yo-yo!”
Snow crab fishing season was scheduled to begin March 29 in area 17 of the St. Lawrence Estuary, then in the Gulf and North Shore over the following days.