Last year, Maine exported $81.1 million to Ireland and the United Kingdom.

DALKEY, Ireland (AP) – Maine seafood dealers are pitching lobster, scallops and shrimp during a weeklong trade mission to Ireland and Northern Ireland in hopes of tapping into new business opportunities overseas.

On Thursday, the contingent of more than 50 Maine businessmen, government officials and others toured Dalkey, a small fishing port south of Dublin. Two Maine seafood dealers said they have received a positive response from potential customers across the United Kingdom for Maine’s seafood products.

One of Gov. John Baldacci’s goals for the trade mission is to find new markets for Maine seafood, along with blueberries, apples and other agricultural products.

Prior to joining the rest of the group in Ireland, the owners of Cozy Harbor Seafood in Portland and Oak Island Seafood in Rockland stopped in London for a few days to meet with potential customers there. The United Kingdom represents a potentially lucrative market since it imports one-third of its food.

Jay Trenholm of Oak Island Seafood reached an agreement this week to ship as much as $2 million in fresh and frozen scallops to England in 2004.

Trenholm said the deal could ease the recent strain of the sluggish economy on his business.

“It has been a tough couple of years,” he said. “This is going to stabilize our situation.”

John Norton, owner of Cozy Harbor, said retailers in London appear interested in his lobster and frozen shrimp products. His concern is that last year’s shortened shrimp season, just 38 days, would stand in the way of more sales.

“If we could get a decent shrimp season, we could sell huge amounts of shrimp over here,” he said. “We can sell a good quantity of lobster meat and tails.”

The trade mission to Ireland and Northern Ireland is the first since Baldacci took office.

Maine last year exported $81.1 million to Ireland and the United Kingdom, which includes England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. That was up from $43.3 in 2001.

State officials and Maine businessmen are trying to develop markets for everything from lumber and lawn mowers to seafood and agricultural products.

Agriculture Commissioner Bob Spear, who led a dozen delegation members in London, promoted blueberries and apples in England. He joined Kim Higgins, export director for Jasper Wyman & Sons, in pitching frozen blueberries and blueberry juice.

“We think there’s promise over there,” Spear said. “It’s a matter of getting out there and letting people know what you’ve got.”

Maine’s blueberry harvest has grown significantly in the past decade, to 75 million pounds in each of the past two years. Because nearly the entire crop is frozen, exporting the fruit is relatively simple. Exports to Japan increased tenfold during the 1990s.

Higgins said talks in London with distributors to stores and retailers were promising because of the healthy reputation the berries enjoy and because there was no competition for products such as blueberry juice.

“It’s an unusual product,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity.”

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