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Every oyster in production at The Last Place On Earth is removed
from the plastic mesh growing bags into bushel baskets and taken
from the growing area to the farm site. At the farm site the baskets
are staged in a submerged holding pen until they can be sorted and
re-bagged. The holding pen is 25 inches deep and located in the
main current of the river. Estuary water flows thru the pen allowing
as much circulation on the oysters as possible while they wait to
be counted and sorted.
| We sort out the dead shell and the clusters. No
clusters are broken apart to make singles. Our singles are a
premium grade that remain as perfect in shape and apearence
as you can find anywhere in the market today. We sort to size
and individually count each grade of oysters. 10 dozen oysters
are placed into color coded mesh bags and then returned to the
approved growing waters. Each bag has an overpack of 5 oysters
so that the customer has some extras to account for misshapen
or damaged oysters during shipment. By returning the oysters
to the growing waters they continue to grow and can repair any
chipping to the bills caused by handeling. The oysters hang
from a rack system in the current of the estuary where they
can remain for several weeks. |
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We maintain an inventory of hanging product and arrange for shipments
from this stock. Harvest actually occurs when we remove these bags
for the final time just before we box the product and ship it. Usually
the product goes from harvest to iced containers within one to two
hours.
At the time of harvest we:
| 1.) simply remove the bags from the estuary |
5.) set bags of oysters into styro boxes |
| 2.) spray them clean |
6.) tag the bags |
| 3.) check for any mortality and replace any oysters
if needed |
7.) close and palatize the shiping containers |
| 4.) place gel ice into AS-2 styro boxes |
8.) ship all product in refrigerated trucks |
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