At a time when prices for commodities such as tea, cocoa and sugar are soaring to their highest levels in years, lobster, a delicacy associated with luxury living, is selling at bargain prices.Prices have sunk so far over the past two years that some mass-market restaurant chains have added lobster to their menus. Tennessee-based Ruby Tuesday, with about 850 outlets in the US, offers lobster tails, as well as lobster carbonara and lobster macaroni and cheese. Hannaford Supermarkets, a New England chain in the heart of the US lobster industry, has the crustacean on special this week at $4.99 a pound, half the price of halibut. The lobster fishery's woes are closely tied to the global financial crisis, which has shrunk demand for a delicacy long associated with celebration. The credit crunch has also deprived North American and European processors of working capital. Icelandic banks, among the most prominent casualties of the meltdown in the markets, were big lenders to the seafood industry.
At a time when prices for commodities such as tea, cocoa and sugar are soaring to their highest levels in years, lobster, a delicacy associated with luxury living, is selling at bargain prices.
Prices have sunk so far over the past two years that some mass-market restaurant chains have added lobster to their menus. Tennessee-based Ruby Tuesday, with about 850 outlets in the US, offers lobster tails, as well as lobster carbonara and lobster macaroni and cheese.
Hannaford Supermarkets, a New England chain in the heart of the US lobster industry, has the crustacean on special this week at $4.99 a pound, half the price of halibut.
The lobster fishery's woes are closely tied to the global financial crisis, which has shrunk demand for a delicacy long associated with celebration.
The credit crunch has also deprived North American and European processors of working capital. Icelandic banks, among the most prominent casualties of the meltdown in the markets, were big lenders to the seafood industry.
