The correct way to handle lobster meat is to slow thaw it in a refrigerator for 24-48 hours. “We tell people, don’t try to push the process,” he said. For frozen product, many people will leave items on a counter or put it in water to accelerate the thawing process – that’s a mistake, according to Highbarger. Processed lobster meat has to be stored and prepared in a particular way. It’s about 70 percent of what Sea Salt sells, says Highbarger.
Loopster processing mac#
“It’s easier for a customer to take a raw tail and cook it.”ĬKT meat tends to ship to restaurants that have a lobster application like lobster rolls, stews or lobster mac and cheese.
“The tail meat is more resilient when it’s raw and frozen,” says Highbarger. Cooked products can be shipped frozen or fresh, depending on the time of year.ĭifferent products have value to different customers – for example, frozen raw tails usually go to restaurants, where chefs will want to use the entire tail and serve in the shell, or grocery chains, who will sell to home cooks looking to grill. Maine processors mainly focus on a couple of key products – including cooked lobster tails, picked meat (usually marketed as CK, meaning claw and knuckle, or CKT, meaning claw knuckle and tail), and frozen raw tails. (They do have some customers that do frozen year round). They do a lot of that so they can maintain price point and quality over the winter months. The wholesalers will build large inventories of frozen product and ship it over the winter months. Processing plants typically open in May, and run from May to December. Today, Sea Salt in Saco ships lobster and also runs a restaurant, opened in 2015, that serves locally harvested and sustainable food.Ī large amount of the live lobster harvested in Maine is brought to a processing plant, where it will be cooked and the meat picked and packaged. He did that several years before opening Sea Salt to get into the distribution/wholesale side of the lobster business. Highbarger has seen the lobster business from all angles, starting as a lobster shack owner before he was approached about running a processing plant. “Handling an animal isn’t something everyone is used to doing.”
“It’s not always easy to cook live lobster,” says Morey Highbarger. For years, processing – cooking and picking the lobster so it can be used in a variety of presentations and products – has been a critical part of the industry. A whole lobster, crawling in a tank, being cooked in a pot or carefully dissembled by a hungry diner, is what most people picture when they think about Maine’s iconic seafood.īut whole live lobster is just one part of how Maine lobster gets to consumers in Maine and abroad.
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