At Hannaford, the cost of a pound of sliced Smokehouse Ham is $6.99. Usually, the price of deli meats less than luxury foods like lobster. But lobster will soon be for sale at Hannaford for $4.99 per pound.

The lobster industry has taken a hit. Lobstermen are earning approximately $2 per pound for the lobsters they are bringing in. This is hardly enough for them to break even on the cost of fuel, bait and pay for a sternman.

“It’s not a good situation,” Boothbay Harbor resident, lobsterman and President of the Downeast Lobstermen's Association Clive Farrin said. “Guys have seasonal boat payments that kick in the first part of July, and some of them are gonna have a struggle making house payments and truck payments and stuff like that. At the end of the day, you start paying expenses and there’s two lobsters per trap; there’s just not enough money to go around.”

Farrin added that it is also discouraging to see little fluctuation in prices elsewhere in the market, such as companies who transport the lobsters to processing plants and restaurant prices.

He believes the economy is at least partially to blame, and says the past four or five years have been more difficult than the rest. Farrin has had a lobstering license since he was a teenager, and switched to full-time lobstering in 1999.

Now, he says, some days it's hard just to break even.

An early season and a surplus of soft-shell lobsters is also responsible for the drop in price.

Typically Canadian processing plants takes many of Maine's lobsters, “but they’re at capacity,” said Robert Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.

Because of the warm weather and the relatively mild winter, there have been more soft-shell lobsters than usual. Soft shell lobsters cannot be shipped live long distances, and must first be processed.

The warmer water has also led to a successful season in Canada. Usually, facilities in Canada purchase and process Maine lobsters. However, they haven’t had to this year because their own waters have yielded more than enough lobster to meet their demands.

Until recently, restaurant prices remained in the normal range. However, many restaurants are starting to lower their prices in support of the local lobstermen in an attempt to encourage more people to eat lobster through promotional events.

Both Fisherman’s Wharf and the Boothbay Harbor Inn are featuring $10 lobster dinners in the next few weeks.

John Sullivan, general manager of Fisherman’s Wharf, said “We are trying to get people to support local lobstermen because we heard that they had pulled their traps … We wanted to give a little support, so that with the prices dropping, we’d drop ours.”

Farrin was excited about the local support. Boosting local sales would help out a bit, though most of the lobstermen’s income comes from the sale of lobsters to processors, he said.

Farrin said that the lobstermen are not tying up or pulling in traps, but they are going out fewer days each week and setting traps a little less, to save on expenses as market prices swoop dangerously low.

“At the end of the day, the thing that really counts is boat prices,” he said. “At the end of the week, that's what you have to pay your light bills and get your groceries. The prices that we’re getting now aren’t high enough to do that,” Farrin said.

Craig Andrews of Andrews' Harborside said that he has tried to keep his restaurant’s prices low since before the recent hardship. He offers the option to add a lobster to any entree purchased for $10, or to purchase a lobster during happy hour for $12.

“I like to support the local lobstermen,” he said. “I like to sell lobsters, because that’s what we’re all about on the coast of Maine.”

Andrews said, “I wouldn’t even mind paying a little more money because the price of their gas and bait doesn’t change, but they’re taking less and less.”