Behind the retail store of Clearwater in Bedford is a large storage complex for the company’s main product: fresh Atlantic lobsters. Submerged in salt brine baskets and special trays, they wait to be shipped out or sold through the Coldwater retail store. Lobster condos, as dry land pound trays are called, hold 30 lobsters per tray, with a total storage capacity of 150,000 pounds of the crustaceans. That’s the way the crustaceans like it -- dark and cold, which prevents moulting and -- not incidentally-- lower market value.

Mother’s Day has the highest demand for lobsters on restaurant menus in North America, with Chinese lunar New Year celebrations coming on strong in world markets. Our backroom tour guides, biologists Stacey Fram and Melissa Dorey, explained that lobsters do not feel pain when immersed in boiling water because they lack a central nervous system. They gave a restaurant tip too: if the roe is black, send it back (it’s undercooked). www.clearwater.ca