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New York Times 10/06/09
....To ensure a supply for her lobster-roll chain and a supermarket line of lobster products, Ms. Bean has spent millions to acquire and upgrade three wharves and buying stations — where several dozen lobstermen sell their catch — as well as a processing plant on the state’s midcoast.
She is opening a “lobster academy” for chefs, is seeking to trademark new names for lobster products (she thinks “claws” sound scary) and pushing, against the wishes of many here, for the state’s lobster catch to be certified as sustainable by a London-based environmental group.
Her goal, she said, is to save Maine’s most iconic industry by ending its dependence on Canadian processors and, under her Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine label, to mass market Maine lobster the way Perdue does chicken....
...“If Linda can brand her little part of the industry and do a good job marketing it,” said Gerald Cushman, a fifth-generation lobsterman in Port Clyde, “I can only think it will help everyone else. While the rest of us are nickel-and-diming, she’s able to jump right in.”...
FMI
Jim's comment: If anyone can get a Maine product in the Dining section of the New York Times, they must be doing something right.
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