Info about Lobsters
How to Buy Maine Lobsters Wholesale
It is not near as expensive to serve lobsters to a large family as you might think. You might have to pay thirty or forty dollars for each person in a fancy restaurant, but you can order live Maine lobsters for around six or seven dollars a pound.
The first thing you have to do is located a distributor for live Maine lobsters. The state of Maine regulates the lobster business which is mostly owned and operated by families. This is an advantage because many large corporate companies would not want to waste time for a small order. However, a family owned lobster business will work hard to earn your business and they will appreciate it.
You can find a good distributor of lobsters by doing a Google or Yahoo search. You can put in search terms like “wholesale lobster” or “live Maine lobsters”. You will get numerous results and some of them will be better than the others. You will need to find a distributor that say they will welcome a small order. Many of the websites will have an entire page for wholesale information. You will send an email with all of your contact information and the amount of lobster you want to purchase. Someone from the company will reply to your email with a price quote. Remember, that when you get your price quote it should be broken down by costs for the lobster and the shipping costs. It can be very expensive to have them shipped so do not be surprised if the shipping is several hundred dollars.
You have some options you can choose for shipping with most distributors. You can use FedEx or UPS, or you can choose to use air freight. If you choose FedEx or UPS your lobster will be delivered right to your door even if it is during the weekend. However, the convenience is expensive. It will cost approximately two hundred dollars to ship one hundred pounds of lobster overnight by FedEx. You should choose FedEx if your total order is low weight or if you cannot use air freight.
Air freight is significantly less expensive, but it is also not as convenient. The lobster distributor packs up your order and takes it to an airport. The lobsters are then put on the airplane and flown to the airport nearest you. Air freight only costs around fifty or seventy-five cents a pound. Air freight would cost less than half of the amount is costs to use FedEx or UPS.
The lobsters will come in a large box that has special pads and ice packs to hold in ocean water. They should be refrigerated with the box left open. It is best to have your lobster arrive on the day you plan to serve them. You will want them to be fresh because that is the whole point of ordering them live. You could go to the local grocery store and buy some that were not fresh.