Lobstah!

Why would anyone in Washington, DC show up at a party that starts at midnight in a city where residents are home bound by ten, get up at five AM – step & repeat? LOBSTAH! “Maine After Midnight” was an Industry Event at the Loft on F Street celebrating Maine New Shell Lobster season – the sweetest, most tender and sustainable harvested lobster to the docks of Maine and menus worldwide. Step & repeat: LOBSTAH. We showed up.

“It’s a long story,” event organizer Matt Jacobson told Hollywood on the Potomac. “What we’ve found as we’ve started this marketing effort for Maine lobster was that we are not on a lot of menus in upscale casual restaurants. We did a study between Baltimore and Maine, surveyed about 2000. We found that we are only on about 4% of the menus for Maine lobster which was interesting to us and a huge opportunity. The second piece of data that we noticed was that about 85% of all seafood consumed in North America is consumed in a restaurant. If we wanted to increase our market share, we had to get it on the menu. It was really important to get to chefs, get to the food media to talk about our story in a way that is meaningful and actually get some audience. We have a great sustainability story as well as culinary versatility. We started telling our story of new shell Maine lobster that we catch in the summertime. It’s a whole different product, not necessarily better, just different – a seasonal play. Then there is the story about the lobster men: It works. The question was how could we have more lobster men meet more chefs. The reality was that chefs work hard hours. They don’t get off work until 10 or 11. We came up with this notion of Maine After Midnight.”