New P.E.I. lobster dip creating more markets for Island seafood

A P.E.I. lobster fisherman is ready to send his premium lobster dip into new markets across Canada and into the U.S., doing his part to grow demand for Island shellfish.

"The more products, the more ways we can get lobster, introduce lobster to people, the more lobster lovers we create," said Rob Morrison of Covehead Seafoods. 

"As a lobster fisherman, any time we see new products hitting the market that involve lobster, it's even better for us."

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Morrison fishes for lobster in the spring fishery out of Covehead harbour, along with his father and sons. 

"Lobster is not a very convenient product. To take home a lobster and cook it and shell it, not a lot of people are up for that task or necessarily know how to do it," Morrison said. 

"If we can introduce lobster into more peoples' homes, more ways and make it more convenient, then we can maybe reach a whole new market of people."

Morrison said developing the dip has given him a different perspective on the price of lobster.

"Seven or eight years ago when the price of lobster was down around $3 a pound, that's not very happy news for lobster fishermen," Morrison said. 

"Now the price of lobster goes down, it's good for the company, not good for the boat and vice versa — so it's a way to insulate ourselves going forward from the fluctuations in the price." 

Will be exporting

Morrison developed the dip with help from the staff at the BioFoodTech facility in Charlottetown.

"We have on the Island so much wonderful ingredients, from the sea, from the land and as long as you can value add and bring the economy up, that's great," said food scientist Jin Lim, the project leader on the lobster dip. 

"Because if you just produce commodities and sell, you will not get any value adding and so this is great to stimulate the economy." 

Morrison has been working at the BioFoodTech facility since the summer of 2017, fine-tuning the formula and even making the transition from a fresh dip to a frozen one to improve shelf life.

Now he will be producing the dip at the Annand Clams plant, a CFIA-approved facility in western P.E.I.

That will allow his distributing partner, MR Seafoods, to start selling the dip across the Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec and into the northeast United States.

"It's nice to see new innovative Island products being created, especially with lobster," said Mickey Rose, owner of MR  Seafoods.

"It's hard sometimes to add value to a lobster, it takes more labour and cost to be able to create a nice finished product like a dip." 

Ideas for more products

Morrison is focused on the lobster dip now but does have ideas for other products.

"We're lobster people and I think our focus always will be lobster," Morrison said. 

"We also have ideas for a couple of other seafood products, just with the idea of not having all of our eggs in one basket."

Morrison recently won a $25,000 prize from Innovation PEI's Ignition Fund for his lobster dip at the Food Xcel competition.

He's using some of that money to buy the new equipment he needs to move into production at the Conway facility. 

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