Keith Reid may have found the way to flourish in B.C.’s shellfish industry: Think small.
The owner of Stellar Bay Shellfish Ltd. near Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island ships 100,000 smaller kusshi oysters a week throughout North America, with many showing up in the finest restaurants and oyster bars.
“It’s a boutique oyster [and] we ship to San Francisco, New York and for us it’s good,” Reid said in an interview. “We’ve identified a niche in the marketplace for small, high-quality oysters. And we get a premium [price] for our oyster. Over the next three years, we hope to increase [production] by 50 per cent.”
Despite Reid’s success, for the immediate future at least, strong growth may not be in the cards for B.C.’s farmed seafood industry as a whole.
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