Why California Spiny Lobster Prices Are Set the Way They Are — What Most Consumers Don’t Know

🦞 LOBSTER FAQS

❓ But I thought lobsters were going for $8/lb to consumer?

Wrong! The California Spiny Lobster COMMERCIAL Fishing season opened on Wednesday, October 1st with a price of $7 – $10/lb from fishermen to wholesalers.
We have not paid lower than $9.00/lb to our fishermen and have the landing receipts with the Dept of Fish and Wildlife to prove it! 📜🧾

🏢 What is a lobster wholesaler?

Good question! Lobster wholesalers are companies (like Catalina) that go to the docks or have lobster delivered from local fishermen to us.
We sell direct to other seafood companies both locally and globally 🌍.
Luckily for our customers, we also just so happen to have a retail market that sells straight to the consumer! 🛒👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🚫🦞 WAIT! I thought China wasn’t buying lobsters this year?

Incorrect! The market opened much lower due to Australia selling to China after 6 years of a trade disagreement.
Australia started selling lobsters to China in December of 2024, so we have been planning for this all year.
We have a solid relationship with our broker and our buyers in China and are thrilled they are still choosing to buy from Catalina. 🇨🇳🤝🇺🇸
We also have a 20% tariff that gets passed to us — which Australia and Mexico (our 2 biggest export competitors) don’t have — but we continue to sell and at least break even on our overhead costs 💸.
This week alone, Catalina Offshore shipped 2,500 lbs of lobsters to China ✈️📦.

💰 What are the overhead expenses for lobster season?

🔧 Basic Requirements:

Lobsters require a special kind of attention. Upon arrival, all lobsters are:

• Measured,
• Sorted for strength, missing legs, and overall health 🦞💪
• Then placed in live tanks.

Live tanks require daily chemical checks like:

• Salinity 🌊
• Nitrates
• Nitrites
• Ammonia

This is done by Dillan Strangman, a UCSD graduate with a major in Biomechanical Engineering 🧪🎓.

🇨🇳 China Shipping – Overhead of $5–$10/lb

Once all levels are measured, we decide which tank to ship from to both Mainland China and Hong Kong.

Lobster pack-outs require 24–48 hours of preplanning, including:

• Health certificates 🧾
• Proof of LEGAL purchase with CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife
• Box prepping 📦
• Broker communication
• Buyer approval

Then comes the crazy part, the pack out!

• We drop tank temperature to make lobsters sleepy 😴
• A crew of 8–10 people pulls, sorts, tallies, packages, ices, and stacks the lobsters
• The driver heads off on a 6-hour roundtrip to LAX 🚚✈️

🚛 Local delivery, wholesale and retail – Overhead of $3–$10/lb

We market our lobsters to:

• Local restaurants 🍽️
• Other wholesalers
• Direct retail customers

Preferred shipping:

• Plane ✈️
• Also by truck locally and up the coast

Shipping includes:

• Specialty styro boxes
• Excelsior, ice packaging, labeling
• Plus a crew to pack out! 📦🧊🧑‍🔧

Our favorite sale is through the retail market, where we can get lobsters in front of the general public who may not know all the ins and outs of California Spiny’s 🦞🏪.

🧾💸 If it costs so much overhead then how will you make money this season?

We probably won’t! That’s just business for you.

Our goal is to continue to buy from our fishermen so they can support their families and we can support ours 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦.

Failure isn’t an option. The families behind:

• Catalina Offshore
• San Diego Seafood
• QS Beef

…have over 50 families relying on us to stay in business through the toughest times 🙏.

We appreciate the community and our ongoing customers who continue to buy! 💙

❤️ Much appreciation and love,

The Strangman Family