Lobster is the new ham in Christmas seafood sales splurge

Christmas traders at Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market are bracing for a Christmas Eve rush, despite the coronavirus pandemic slashing their typical mid-season trade.

George Milonas, with ‘the Cray Twins’, is flying in more lobsters for his store at Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market after he sold out on Wednesday. Picture: David Geraghty

Queen Victoria Market’s George the Fishmonger has not seen a spike in sales of crayfish on the scale of the past few weeks in years, after completely selling out of lobsters on Wednesday.

“(Christmas Eve) is a very big day … but the lead-up was almost an 80 per cent rise on last year,” said George Milonas.

At least half a tonne of lobsters have already sold this week, and after his store sold out of them on Wednesday Mr Milonas said he would try to fly in more stock for Thursday for the Christmas Eve rush.

He said demand had been strong because the cost of lobsters is at a 10-year low, selling for $120 per kilo after “China pulled the pin” on the produce.

“We did not expect such a big hit earlier on … we are actually paying fishermen to go out right now and get more stock and we are flying it in — we have never done that before,” Mr Milonas said, as people have bought up to seven lobsters in one hit.

“With all the publicity of the cheap crayfish in the market, we have been inundated with people buying crayfish this year at a much better price … I think (Christmas Eve) will be absolutely huge.”

It has been a similar story for Fiona Macali — owner of The Epicurean — who said platter cheeses, whole Christmas hams and charcuterie-style deli meats like duck salami and prosciutto had been popular.

“It doesn’t matter what’s happening, Christmas is Christmas,” Ms Macali said.

“We are hoping it’s going to be a bumper year and the pattern of some of the customers has been rather than the large celebration, they will have two or three smaller celebrations.

“Even though they are buying smaller amounts … if you add it all up it’s either the same or more that they would normally spend at Christmas.”

Meanwhile ReWine owner Marshall Waters said business was almost back to how it was ­before the lockdowns.

“Normally at this time of year we go up by about 80 or 90 per cent. This year we have gone up about 80 or 90 per cent — but from 50 per cent down,” Mr Waters said of his business which sells and then refills bottles with local wines.

After 12 tonnes of cooked prawns and 11,500 dozen oysters were sold at the market in the six-day lead-up to Christmas last year, Queen Victoria Market CEO Stan Liacos said he looked forward to the usual pre-Christmas rush.

“After a year of hardship … we look forward to welcoming shoppers to our open-air market,” Mr Liacos said.

De Costi Seafoods manager Carmelo Lombardo from the Sydney Fish Market said crayfish sales were strong in NSW this year too.

“Western Australian Rocklobster has been selling very well, more so than any other year I have seen,” Mr Lombardo said.

“Prawns and oysters are always top of the list of bestsellers, but lobster is not too far behind prawns this year, which is a big change for us,” he said.

A Sydney Fish Market spokesman said produce was flying off the ice this year.

“We estimate the total quantity of seafood sold across the site throughout our 36-Hour Seafood Marathon to be approximately 370 tonnes,” he said.