Bean plans growth for lobstering community

The Herald Gazette

PORT CLYDE (April 5): Linda Bean is a Portland native and has lived on the St. George Peninsula since 1990. In February 2007, after she had moved from Tenants Harbor to Port Clyde, she bought the Bay Lobster Company from the Albano family, changed the name to Port Clyde Lobster Company, and launched a new brand and a new way of marketing Maine's signature crustacean.

Bean has also made some innovations in marketing. She said most retailers and restaurants are interested in the tail of the lobster, and she is committed to creating a market for the knuckle and claw. One new product, a shrimp pie garnished with a lobster claw, is being sold across the United States in the same markets that sell live lobster.

This summer she plans to expand the Port Clyde General Store by opening part of the upstairs as a chandlery, apothecary and dry goods market. Bean said customers will also be able to find toys, kitchenware and books in the new space.

Tags like these, identifying the wharves where lobsters are landed, are put on every lobster Linda Bean sells.

She is also working to establish a strong regional brand, tagging each of her lobsters with a hanging label that identifies the product as either a Port Clyde, Tenants Harbor or Vinalhaven lobster, depending on the wharf where it was landed.

"If we can find creative new markets we should do well," she said, adding that her goal is to bring more money to the coastal and island communities of Knox County.

"The ones who succeed in this big sea change are the ones who are willing to do extra," she said of those at all levels of the lobster industry.

FMI