Will a lobster in Montana cost the same as one in Missouri?
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Mainly suppliers, middlemen charges
Fishermen might say oh, it was a bad day. Lobsters are in low supplies and hence charge higher. Some middlemen might say hey this is one of the bad best quality batch of lobsters I’ve seen in years and pay more (in the form of an auction at the port) for those lobsters and hence sell them more.
It depends on what the restaurant pays for the ingredients. For example, if a restaurant is on the coast, and it buys seafood from the local fishermen ,the fishermen may catch a bunch of lobster today, sell them for 5 follars each, the restaurant sells lobster dinner for 15 dollars that day, if tomorrow they only catch a few lobsters, they may cost 8 dollars each, making tomorrow’s price 22 dollars for a lobster dinner.
Market price means that the commodity fluctuates on price and availability.
Those are two separate questions.
“Market Price” on a menu refers to the price that the restaurant was able to purchase the food at a market that day. This is usually applied only to food that needs to be bought very fresh and may fluctuate significantly in local price (typically just fish). It’s the restaurant saying “We didn’t have enough information to write down a price at the time we printed the menu.” (In practice, many restaurants just use “market price” to get people to order something before they know how much it costs).
This is separate from the question of the relative price of lobster in Maine and Missouri. Lobsters are caught in Maine and must be shipped to Missouri, so they are generally more expensive in Missouri. This will apply to all restaurants that serve lobster, even those that print a price on their menu. It’s an unavoidable, long-term difference in the price of lobster. The “market price” label is instead meant to deal with *local* fluctuations in price, which are generally less stable or predictable. It’s entirely possible to see a day where lobsters are (relatively) expensive and Maine and (relatively) inexpensive in Missouri.
I was a chef for 15 years, and it’s based on food cost. Restaurants typically run at 25-30% food cost for their ingredients, however, fresh seafood prices (especially crab and lobster) can fluctuate a lot in just a day or two. So, if the restaurant is getting lobster tails at $10, you can expect to pay around $40 or so.
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