Cape May Wants Oyster Firms To Flourish

LOWER TOWNSHIP – In 1997, Dan Cohen started growing oysters on the Delaware Bay tidal flats using a unique French method that promised to produce the perfect restaurant oyster.

Cohen's Ocean Drive fishing company, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, began its oyster project with three workers who initially produced fewer than 200,000 oysters per year. He named them Cape May Salts.

It quickly became the perfect 3-inch restaurant oyster and, before long, Cohen's succulent bivalves were being sold in Boston, Baltimore and New York. They have even made their way to restaurants in Las Vegas and Texas.

Today, Cohen has 30 workers. He expects to sell 2.5 million oysters at 60 cents each, wholesale, this year. Six other companies, five in the past year, have opened up businesses next to his, marketing their own oysters by such names as Salty Lady and Cape Shore Salts.

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