Whole Foods In Hot Water Over Maine Lobster

"Think locally" may be the mantra for many of Whole Foods' environmentally-conscious customers, but at the moment, it's backfiring--at least in Maine.

Whole Foods, set to open its first Maine store in Portland next week, created plenty of hard feelings among lobstermen last June, when it announced that it would stop selling live lobsters in its more than 160 stores. At the time, it heralded the lobster as a complex creature, and said it had determined that current harvesting and retailing methods--including piling up the naturally solitary crustaceans in overcrowded tanks--were inhumane.

But when it announced its expansion into Maine--where lobstering is a major industry and many people's license plates are adorned with the little red guys--Whole Foods reconsidered.

Working with a company called Little Bay Lobster Co., the Texas-based Whole Foods said it would sell lobsters harvested using an innovative technique that takes the lobster from boat to store with less human contact than standard methods, packing them in special crates for shipping.

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Once at Whole Foods, the lobsters live in individual compartments--think crustacean condos--for seven days. And if customers choose, Whole Foods workers will kill the lobsters with a special stun gun. (Of course, taking them home live is still an option.)

One problem: Little Bay Lobster is based in New Hampshire, and while the lobsters it is selling Whole Foods are technically harvested in Maine waters, the fact that Whole Foods went with a supplier based in another state has Maine lobstermen seeing red all over again.

"There's nothing wrong with the way Maine lobstermen harvest Maine lobsters," says Dennis Bailey, a spokesman for the Maine Lobster Promotion Council, which is currently engaged in a branding campaign to get all Maine lobster labeled "Certified Maine Lobster."

In fact, Bailey points out, Maine lobstermen follow sustainability guidelines that are stricter than those allowed in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In those states, for example, fishermen are allowed to sell "bycatch" lobsters--those that find their way into nets. Those sales are prohibited in Maine.

So far, local reaction has ranged from amused to outraged. Maine lobsters are "now giving you the claw," wrote one local columnist. Readers responded with posts like: "They'll never see dollar one of my money," "I didn't even know New Hampshire had lobstermen," and "If Whole Foods is so humane, when are they going to stop selling meat and dead fish?"

A spokeswoman for Whole Foods said the company does not comment for trade publications.

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