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B y
E - C h i n g
L e e
HOME
IN AN
OYSTER
SHELL
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New oyster aquaculture
operations grow seed,
take root
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Photos by E-Ching Lee
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oey Daniels shucks an oyster he just pulled
from the Roanoke Sound and pops it into his
mouth.
“Twenty-four parts per thousand,” he
announces, stating a level of saltiness for the
oyster.
Then he tosses the shell back into the
water with a flick of his blue-gloved hand.
Daniels, the fourth generation of a Wanchese
fish house family, is showing a visitor around his
oyster lease — a guest who laughs at his bold
declaration.
“What? You think I’m kidding?” he
demands, with a chuckle.
Continued
1. Joey Daniels’ oysters grow in the Roanoke
Sound. 2. Oysters crowd the bottom cage from
Daniels’ lease. 3. From his “office,” Daniels can
see the Bodie Island Lighthouse. 4. Daniels
uses practically every spot on his lease to grow
oysters. 5. The Wanchese Fish Company sells
these oysters to seafood aggregators along the
East Coast. 6. All sorts of plant and animal life
grow on the bags too. 7. As it spins, this cylinder
sorts the oysters by size. 8. Daniels also uses
cattle-pen fencing to hold oysters as they grow.
9. Small oysters grow in bags, slipped into the
fencing racks.
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Photos by E-Ching Lee
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Daniels, who runs the Bodie Island
Oysters aquaculture operation for Wanchese
Fish Company, should know. In two years, he’s
grown his venture into one of the largest oyster
producers in the state.
Farther south, Chris Matteo established
his own aquaculture venture, Chadwick Creek
Oysters. He put seed into the creek, off the Bay
River, last spring and started selling his oysters
before Halloween. This northern transplant
is armed with years of personal research, and
strong support from his wife and her family,
North Carolina natives with roots at the coast.
At the Raleigh Farmers Market, Matteo
pauses briefly to remember when he harvested
the oysters being sold a few steps away.
“Yesterday morning at 8:30 a.m. It was 28
degrees and there was a bear on my driveway,”
he recalls.
Based on the wind direction that morning,
“they might be a little saltier than normal,” he
explains. The salinity of his oysters is slightly
affected by wind tides.
These guys know their oysters — and
are open to using novel methods to grow their
businesses. So says Marc Turano, former North
Carolina Sea Grant mariculture and blue crab
specialist.
Turano sees many similarities between the
self-professed “dock brat” from the Outer Banks
and the former hedge-fund trader who grew up
in the Northeast. He’s worked with both men to
help them set up their operations and determine
what would work in their specific locations.
Even though Turano no longer is with Sea Grant,
Daniels and Matteo still call him for advice.
“They’re both very active and very willing
to try things that others aren’t to see what works.
They’re very innovative,” he explains.
“They’re going to set the standard for North
Carolina,” Turano predicts.
He works within view of the Wanchese
Fish Company, a business started by his greatgrandfather about 75 years ago and now run by
his father, aunts and uncles.
Daniels stands on a barge in the middle of
his lease, looking out on the calm water that is as
smooth as glass. The wind is still, the birds are
silent and the low afternoon sun glitters.
“I like my office,” Daniels admits. “It’s got
a good view.”
And he prefers it to his previous job that
required him to spend a lot of time in Virginia,
where the family seafood business has another
location.
“I didn’t want to be up there. I wanted
to be at home. Anyhow, it made me think of
something we could do at home,” he says. And
so the idea of the aquaculture operation was
born.
It’s not always quiet on the barge. When
Daniels has the sorter processing oysters, “it’s
like thousands of alarm clocks going off at one
time.” A metal cylinder with different-sized
holes turns and separates oysters by size. This
process also chips the thin edges off the shell
lips, encouraging the bivalve to grow deeper
cups, a quality prized by the half-shell market.
The barge also houses a large whiteboard
that maps out where cages and bags are located
on the lease, and the condition of the oysters.
Each date represents when a cage was last
checked, with ink color denoting the size of the
oysters. The strings of lines are for the float bags,
recording the number and size of bags set, and
when they were placed.
“We update it every day. And I’ll take a
picture of it and I’ll go home and look at it on
my iPad and try and figure out what I’m going to
do tomorrow,” Daniels says.
He needs to be organized because he has
customers who put in large orders. Daniels’
oysters are sold through the fish house to
* Bringing It Home
seafood aggregators and distributors, such as
On his 10-acre lease, Daniels’ bivalves have U.S. Foods and Sysco. Sometimes it’s more
a front seat to iconic Outer Banks landmarks.
work than Daniels, co-worker Pat Leonard and
They are bordered on one side by the Cape
two part-time workers can handle.
Hatteras National Seashore, watched over by
The men constantly are experimenting
their namesake Bodie Island Lighthouse, and
with ways to grow the shellfish — float bags,
protected on the southeast by Oregon Inlet.
bottom cages and racks — and trying out new
methods. “Joey always called with the strangest
questions. He made me spend a lot of time
thinking things out,” Turano says. “I learned a lot
from him.”
Last November, Daniels and Leonard
started using cattle-pen fencing with curled-up
edges to hold grow bags. He folds down the ends
of his bags and tucks them into these galvanized
metal shelves. The racks are stacked two high
and held down with “rebar candy canes.” Each
inexpensive rack can hold 18 bags.
Asked what his oysters taste like, Daniels
doesn’t even have to think.
“Mine are the best in the world,” he
responds without hesitation. Then he laughs.
“That’s what they all say. That’s what they’re
supposed to say.”
But then he gets serious. “I think oysters
taste like the last thing they drank,” he says.
Harvest conditions, such as tides and rain, can
affect their flavor.
“I grew up in this town right here and the
fish houses are closing,” he says, noting that his
community is always on his mind. “The inlet’s
closed half the time so the big boats can’t come
and go. And those people need jobs, so we’ve got
to bring some product across those docks to keep
things going.”
Daniels has big plans for his oyster farm.
“We’re trying to do it on an industrial scale. I
don’t think anyone’s tried to do that in our state
yet,” he continues. “I don’t claim to be doing that
yet but that’s what our goal is. I feel like it’s our
future. We need to do it.”
North Carolina has the second largest
estuarine system in the country but produces less
than 1 percent of cultured oysters in the U.S.,
Daniels observes. He wants to see the state’s
growers become key players in that market. “It’s
time for us to get in the game.”
*
Finding a Niche
Matteo, who owns Chadwick Creek Oysters
in Bayboro, wants to help change things where
he is too. And he is throwing himself right into
the job.
The coastal property he purchased came
with an 8-acre shellfish franchise — a deeded
Continued
1. The cattle-pen fencing racks are stacked two high and staked in place by candy cane rebar. 2. Joey Daniels is the fourth generation of a fish house
family. 3. Aquaculture allows Daniels to stay close to home in Wanchese. 4. The oyster sorter and a board that maps the location of oysters on the lease
are on this barge. 5. Daniels checks the oysters in a grow bag. 6. In the afternoon, Pat Leonard works with Daniels to build additional gear to hold their
ever-growing shellfish population.
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Courtesy Chris Matteo
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Courtesy Chris Matteo
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Courtesy Locals Seafood
Courtesy Chris Matteo
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Marc Turano
Courtesy Chris Matteo
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Courtesy Chris Matteo
claim to submerged land on which the owner
pays taxes. The state no longer issues franchises.
Instead it offers bottom or water-column leases
on five-year contracts.
His franchise, 25 miles east of New Bern,
is close to Swan Quarter and Pamlico Bay, areas
that once were rich in oysters. However, Matteo
and wife Kelly found that many of those operations had been shuttered. The couple also noticed
that most oysters consumed in North Carolina
were not local, which didn’t make sense to them,
given the state’s vast water resources.
“We figured that if we could help turn the
tide, we would love to get involved and do that,”
Matteo says.
Then last spring, Matteo, along with
father-in-law Duane Creech and Doug Cross
from Pamlico Packing, went to visit several
oyster aquaculture businesses in Maryland and
Virginia, and the oyster hatchery at the Virginia
Institute of Marine Science — a tour organized
by Turano.
The trip was a tipping point. It made
Matteo want to pursue oyster aquaculture in
a way that would be more than a “weekendwarrior” effort. He wanted this venture to be
more than a side interest.
And so he jumped in, literally and
figuratively. Immediately after that trip, Matteo
and Creech were up to their chests in 4 feet of
water in Chadwick Creek, planting oyster seed.
That was early April. Seven months later, they
were harvesting their first legal-sized oysters. In
the world of oyster growing, this is fast.
Matteo is still ironing out the details. He
wants to get the process optimized, efficient and
simplified to the point where he can “basically
hand it off to someone who hasn’t spent the last
year doing this and they could easily pick it up
and run with it,” he notes. He wants to focus on
the business and marketing aspect of the venture.
Currently, he takes his oysters to Cross
at Pamlico Packing in Grantsboro, about 15
minutes away. Cross’ trucks deliver his product
to Locals Seafood in Raleigh, for distribution to
individuals and restaurants.
“They are some of the best oysters we have
eaten. Delicious on the half-shell, their deep
cup and subtle brine are perfect for my tastes,”
says Lin Peterson, co-owner of Locals Seafood.
“It’s great to offer a premium oyster, grown and
harvested year-round in North Carolina waters.”
Local restaurants give a “thumbs up” to these
oysters, Peterson adds.
“Our priority is to sell a local product in a
local way,” Matteo says. His goal is to produce
enough oysters to satisfy in-state demand. Then
he wants to venture into neighboring states, such
as Virginia and Maryland, and reverse North
Carolina’s oyster-importing trend.
Matteo says his oysters are unique. “We
have a very distinct oyster in North Carolina,” he
explains. “We’re the only grower right now on
the lower end of the salinity scale.”
In addition, the salinity of his oysters can
vary slightly from week to week. “We’re in a
wind-tide area, so if the wind blows a certain
way, the oysters are saltier and if it blows a
different way, it’s lower salinity,” he says.
In preparation for spring growing season,
Matteo has put more seed in the water and plans
to expand his venture once the water starts to
warm up. But he’s satisfied for now.
“So far, so good. We’ve put a lot of effort
into it. We’ve put a lot of money into it,” he says,
with a wry laugh. He understands that operations
such as his take time to hit their stride. However,
he is glad to be in a business that speaks to
something near and dear to his palate and plate.
“My wife and I are foodies at heart so
we wanted to get involved in something that
generated a local product,” he explains.
Increased sunlight encourages the growth of
submerged aquatic vegetation, which provides
habitat for many juvenile species — such as
crabs, flounder and shrimp — that form the
backbone of the state’s commercial fisheries.
So these bivalves, and the aquaculture
operations that are growing them, are giving
back to the state’s economy and environment in
incalculable ways.
“It’s one of the few businesses that you can
get into where it’s a win-win-win. It’s a win for
the end consumer — they get a fresh, healthy
product,” Matteo explains. “And at the same
time, it’s awesome for the environment,” and
lucrative for the grower.
He uses two kinds of oysters: triploids that
cannot spawn and diploids that can reproduce.
Growers prefer the triploid because it does
not expend energy on reproduction, meaning
that its flesh is consistently firm and juicy.
During spawning season, diploids often have
lower-quality meat because their energies are
redirected toward propagating.
But both kinds of shellfish benefit the
environment, Matteo explains. Diploids spawn
and replenish the wild oyster stock in the area.
Triploids, even though they don’t add to the local
population, filter the surrounding water.
“And there aren’t too many businesses
or crops that you can grow that leave the
environment in a better state than it was prior,”
he adds.
Daniels, who uses triploids exclusively,
* Creating a Welcoming Place
emphasizes the benefits from his oysters beyond
These cultured oysters benefit people,
filtering.
as well as the surrounding environment and
“Every one that dies out here, there’s
the creatures that live in their vicinity. If
another shell in the water,” he says. “Wild spat
these shellfish spawn, they replenish the wild
can come and attach themselves to those shells,
population in the area. And when they die, their and now you’ve got wild oysters. So you are
shells provide new surfaces upon which spat can helping. Even though my oysters aren’t going
settle.
to spawn, a good portion of them die, so I’m
“Increasing the population of oysters has
putting shell on the bottom to build natural
dual benefit. In addition to being a tasty seafood oyster reefs.
option, oysters provide many ecosystem services
“When I lose, nature wins. So it’s a good
including filtering the water and providing
thing either way you look at it.”
habitat to a multitude of marine species,” says
Learn about these and other aquaculture
John Fear, Sea Grant deputy director.
operations at the N.C. Aquaculture
Mainly, oysters filter the water, removing
Development Conference in February. Go
impurities, and often extracting particles that
to page 4 for details. Find Chadwick Creek
prevent sunlight from reaching the bottom.
Oysters at chadwickcreek.com.
1. Chris Matteo owns 8 acres of deeded bottom in the Bay River. 2. This barge is used to handle the bottom cages. 3. Matteo’s bivalves are lower in salinity than
most oysters grown in North Carolina. 4. Pamlico Packing trucks Matteo’s oysters to Raleigh. 5. Matteo is completing his first full year as an oyster grower. 6. Matteo
and his father-in-law Duane Creech talk to Anthony Marchetti from Rappahannock River Oyster Co. 7. Creech works with Matteo in the family-run business.
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