HOW I GET OYSTERS FROM SEA TO PLATE
When Tom first asked me to give a talk and gave it this title my mind focussed on the pure logistics of the operation over the years but my thoughts have changed since then. I will however start as I originally intended in pre-Roman Britain with oysters being gathered from the shores and eaten there and then or taken home to eat. We then have the Romans, who were already cultivating oysters by moving them from the sea and relaying them in LakeLucrine to improve them. They were highly prized and said to be worth their weight in gold. They must have been overjoyed to come here and find plenty of wild oysters, which they rated to be the best, there for the taking. I have never been able to believe the tales that they sent them back to Rome on donkeys over the Alps but who knows.
Then jump over 1700 years to the late eighteenth century when my four-times great grandfather sailed to London with oysters. After this the Hawards, or at least the ones who stayed on Mersea, seem to have been content with just cultivating their oysters, in the same creek as we do now for at least 100 years; apart from a few excursions in the coasting trade and sailing on yachts to try and win the America’s Cup.
It was never intended that I would work with oysters when I left school; despite having worked with my father on Saturdays and holidays while I was at school. I was meant to get an education and then get a “proper job with prospects” – working regular house, with regular pay and a pension at the end. He didn’t want me to work as hard as he had; dredging oysters by hand (originally under sail or haul-towing)) or picking up oysters and winkles from the mudflats. He worked alone a lot of the time, with some help when he was busy, mainly cultivating the natives on his laying. Some of these had spatted there while others he caught from the free ground in the Spring. Like most other oystermen in Mersea at that time he would buy some ports each spring to lay on the edges until the next spring when they were all picked up, parted, graded and then relaid to be picked up again during the summer, when they would be sent to virtually all the seaside resorts in the country. He would sell his oysters to one of the several oyster merchants along the waterfront at West Mersea. At that time purification wasn’t necessary and the oysters were kept in pits along the foreshore and just boxed or bagged up when orders were received, stood on platforms at the side of the road for collection by the local carrier to be delivered to Colchester Station. A little later, when the carrier had finished and Dr. Beeching had wielded his axe, helping the demise of the seaside trade, oysters for London were taken by the lorries delivering fruit and veg to the London wholesale markets. Those for Monday delivery being taken to the depot on Saturday and just left in the shade. Temperature control and shelf lift – what was that?
Anyway my life didn’t g as planned; while I was at college my father died and whilst I finished my course my heart was not in it and I came home to work the oysters for my mother. This was 1966, only 3 years after the big freeze-up which had decimated the oyster stocks so there was not that much to do and I went fishing as well. I soon started selling the fish we caught to markets, especially London, but still just sold the oysters to local merchants because purification tanks had become necessary by this time and my mother wanted to continue in the same way as my father had done. As time went on I started selling fish from other people and delivering into London. I also took oysters from the merchants to their customers in Billingsgate and to Bentleys in Swallow St., bringing back the New Zealand butter boxes in which Bentleys oysters were then packed. Most of the natives at this time were relaid from Cornwall or, after 1972 from the Solent as local stocks were not to really start to recover from 1963 for many years. For several years after 1972 we were bringing back several tons each week from the Solent for relaying.
In the 70’s I started exporting fish, initially to Holland and was soon also delivering oysters to Yerseke. Exports to France and Spain followed, with small natives being sold to Rungis and Brittanny from where gigas were brought back for direct sale.
The 80’s were a time of change; Bonamia, introduced by oysters from Cornwall, virtually wiped out the native oyster industry and many of the older merchants decided to retire but the banning of TBT meant that the gigas would grow and eventually, but unkown to us then, the natives would spawn again. The younger oystermen in Mersea wanted to continue and by still relaying natives from the Solent, although new husbandry was required, doing some fishing and looking after yacht moorings they managed to survive. At this time Macfisheries decided that they did not want any further involvement in shellfish growing and put up for sale their Helford River operation in Cornwall, Seasalter at Whitstable and their shares in the Tollesbury & Mersea Native Oyster Fishery Company which held the Several Order on a large part of the River Blackwater. The prospects for natives were still uncertain to say the least, but a grout of us got together and, through Blackwater Oystermen which was our representative body, bought these shares – a massive act of faith. Sales were directed mainly at restaurants in London with Allan Bird installing a small purification plant in a waterside shed and my van making direct deliveries every day. I will digress a little here; it is no good promoting a product if you do not have faith in it. We always say that to produce wild oysters successfully there are 3 pre-requisites – a large enough spawning stock, a good supply of cultch and clean water. During these years we spent a lot of time with Anglian Water to try and improve water quality. With extra pressure being exerted by the local council because of the bathing beach, this resulted in a new sewage treatment works, with tertiary (UV) treatment being installed at West Mersea. But this is an on-going battle; our area is scheduled to have a very high rate of development in the next few years but little mention has been made of the infrastructure necessary for this. Norovirus is with us as is DSP. If oyster cultivation is to continue; new/upgraded STWs are necessary as are tight controls on overflows, with a much better system of notifying these to the people on the ground – the oyster growers.
Only with active co-operation from all the relevant authorities from whom we need a positive can-do attitude do we stand a chance of continuing to produce quality oysters for appreciative customers.
Later in the 80’s I tried gigas for the second time, having tried seed from Tony Maskell back in the early 70’s without any success. But this time was different; 50/60gram oysters laid on the edges, as ports had been years before, grew rapidly and fished well so that they were large enough for sale within a year. Peter Frebch had retired and I took over his purification plant to purify these ready for sale mainly to customers for our existing wholesale fish business. Gradually other oystermen started growing gigas and as confidence in the disappearance of TBT grew some started with even smaller seed, achieving extremely rapid growth in rafts before laying the oysters on the ground to harden off. Allan Bird had by this time, in partnership with Michael Brook, formed B B’s Fish and built a state of the art purification plant to handle the increased amounts of Solent oysters which were being relaid. However things were difficult for us; the fish business had expanded, we had borrowed a lot of money and bought new premises but quotas began to bite and interest rates soared and we lost everything except the layings, which were still my mothers, and The Company Shed. Before the Tollesbury & Mersea Company was sold they had decided that they did not want their shed to I bought it to use as part of the fish business but then did not need it for that so Heather started selling shellfish to take away at weekends. This soon got busier and when here niece, who helped her at weekends, left school and wanted a job The Shed opened all the week (except Mondays) and started to sell local fish as well Often people would some in and sit on the old benches in the shed to eat what they had bought. At first she didn’t sell oysters because Douglas Mussett (The Duke) was still selling oysters, with help from his jackdaw (I don’t know how he included with in his HACCP) from this little shed further along the road, as he had done for many years; but after both he and his wife died and their business closed she agreed to start as so many people were asking for oysters. She was, from 1991 when the business restarted as hers, working on her own but soon needed help again as the “restaurant” side of the business expanded and secondhand tables were acquired and old pews collected from any church that was throwing them out. At this time I was still, with help of some friends, still continuing with wholesale fish on a small scale as well as growing oysters but I soon started to concentrate on the oysters, especially the gigas as they provided a quicker return which we needed at that time.
When Allan Bird decided that he would rather concentrate on growing oysters, which is all he really wanted to do, and not bother with the marketing; I used his premises for a time to supply both his customers and mine. But then we built our own depuration tanks at the back of The Company Shed, which was ideal for it enabled us to show interested customers the amount of work that was needed to provide them with safe oysters.
I felt that we needed to increase our retail sales and one weekend we happened to meet some friends at Borough Market, which I thought was just the place to try this. Heather however thought I had enough to do; so the idea was shelved for a while. In the meantime I started at Pimlico Farmers Market which was a good introduction to London market life and enabled me to get the direct contact with the consumer which I considered so important. This wetted my appetite for Borough again and after sometime I was approved although Heather still maintains that this was only because of The Company Shed’s reputation. We retail more there, as well as at other markets, each year. I am convinced that oysters do not sell themselves and that, even with large-scale promotion, that one to one contact and encouragement is necessary. Whilst most people nowadays do most of their shopping at supermarkets I don’t consider that they are at all helpful in increasing oyster sales and maintaining a decent return to the producer. I often say that if I ask 100 people do they like oysters 50 will say yes and 50 no and if the latter 50 are asked if they have tried them probably less than half will say yes. It is the ones who say no who are then encouraged to try them and most are favourably surprised. One of my colleagues set himself the target of persuading 100 people to try an oyster at one 3 day show – he reached 103; over half said that they would try them again and several of those went on to ask for more at the time. We encourage them to try a No. 4 Native, which I think is the best to start on; no free samples; people who only want those do not usually want to buy anyway. One problem is that many people only know about gigas and it is not unknown for a customer to ask for 3 oysters and when asked which type to point at the gigas and say “that’s an oyster” and when pointing at the native to say “what’s that”?
Whilst our retail sales are an increasing part of the business, we still sell far more oysters wholesale with deliveries being made throughout the UK as well as increasingly to other parts of the world. We have worked closely for many years with the Slow Food organisation for I think that both the product ion and consumption of oysters fits well with their ethos; they believe that food should taste good, that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work. It is meant to be the antithesis of fast food and foods are recognised for their unique taste with Colchester Oysters produced in the creeks around MerseaIsland being included in their Ark of Taste. We have sold at three of their Bi-ennial Salone del Gustos in Turin, selling out each time. This resulted last year in oysters from Mersea being supplied to the British Embassy in Rome for the party to celebrate the Queen’s official birthday nearly 2000 years after the Romans first discovered them on our shores.
Richard Haward
May 2010
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