America's Seafood Leaders

Rappahannock River Oyster Co., Middlesex County

It's challenging to remember a time when Virginia — the nation’s third-largest seafood-producing state — wasn’t known for its flavorful, briny oysters and succulent clams, but the late 1990s and early 2000s were a dark era for shellfish producers.

Oysters, in particular, thanks to warming temperatures in the Chesapeake Bay, were dying off from diseases and a lack of solutions to treat them. Many oystermen — including third- and fourth-generation family businesses — closed their doors.

“It was a pretty desperate time. [We worried that] we were going to lose the Chesapeake Bay oyster industry because of disease,” said Bruce Vogt, president of Gloucester County-based Vogt Oyster Company (doing business as Big Island Aquaculture Oysters), which has been farming oysters for around 10 years.

That started to change in the early 2000s, when Dr. Stan Allen took over as director of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s (VIMS) Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center and began genetically breeding oysters that would survive.

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When Allen effectively produced disease-resistant oysters around 2003, oyster hatcheries realized a resurgence. In 2005, when VIMS released its first survey of shellfish aquaculture production, the state produced around 800,000 individual half-shell oysters. That number has quickly grown over the years, reaching 40 million oysters worth an estimated $62.4 million in 2018. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2018 Census of Aquaculture, one in every five American oysters sold in 2018 was harvested in Virginia.

Virginia’s 134 oyster farms made up 70% of all aquaculture operations in the Commonwealth in 2018, according to the same 2018 aquaculture census. Virginia is the top producer of hard clams in the U.S., producing around 200 million individual clams each year. All told, Virginia boasts 152 mollusk farms, nearly double the 80 in the Commonwealth in 2013 and trailing only Massachusetts’ 157. The Commonwealth’s $94.3 million in 2018 mollusk sales nearly tripled those in California, the second-highest state.

And it’s not just shellfish that the state is known for. A variety of finfish such as striped bass and flounder also proliferate. Virginia is the nation’s third-largest seafood producer, with total landings of 363 million pounds in 2018, outpaced only by Alaska and Louisiana. Sales of food fish in Virginia reached $15.4 million in 2018, up 35% over a five-year period.

The Port of Reedville on the Northern Neck was the fifth-largest port in the U.S. by volume of seafood landed in 2018. Meanwhile, the Seafood Industrial Park in Newport News has averaged in the top 10 nationally for value of seafood landed out of all seafood industrial parks. The massive park, home to a number of seafood and other water-dependent companies such as ice plants and boat-building businesses, provides full-service accommodations to the seafood industry, such as utility hook-ups and vessel fueling, service, and repair.

The state’s seafood industry is flourishing, leaders say, because of its favorable regulatory policies, its strong research support, and, of course, “the largest estuaries in the U.S. to haul seafood from — the Chesapeake Bay and parts of the Atlantic Ocean,” said Mike Hutt, executive director of the Virginia Marine Products Board.

In addition, seafood sellers are effectively marketing their products within the state, across the United States and, in some cases, other countries. Virginia oyster producers are finding a lucrative market overseas, particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia. Asian consumers “love the flavor, texture, and affordability of our oysters,” Hutt said, while Ryan Croxton, owner of Rappahannock Oyster Co. in Middlesex County on the Middle Peninsula, says that most Asian customers prefer a sweeter oyster.

Oyster companies have raised the value of their product over the years by branding their specific oysters and distinct flavor. “Now you see oysters that don’t say, ‘from the Chesapeake Bay.’ They market individual oysters,” said Michael Oesterling, executive director of Shellfish Growers of Virginia.

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For example, Vogt’s website touts the fact that its master farmer, Daniel Vogt, pampers his “babies” with music and tumbling to “encourage deep cup growth for a meaty, juicy oyster.”

Virginia’s oyster industry has benefitted from Americans’ desire for raw oysters, which has surged in the past few years as consumers seek out one-of-a-kind food experiences. “Today, when you look at social media, you see people doing flights of oysters with different flavor profiles,” Hutt said.

Deborah Pratt, of Middlesex County on the Middle Peninsula, has won the National Oyster Shucking Championship Contest 11 times.

Croxton has realized Americans’ growing desire to taste flavorful local oysters firsthand. The third-generation company ships its Rappahannock River oysters all over Virginia and the U.S., and to some foreign countries.

In 2011, the company opened Merroir, the first of its six restaurants and oyster bars in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Charleston, S.C., and Los Angeles. It moves around 10 million half-shell oysters annually.

“We have seen tremendous growth in the U.S. The market is nowhere near its peak,” Croxton said. “We eat so much more seafood than we used to per capita.” In fact, U.S. per capita seafood consumption hit the 16-pound mark for the first time in nearly a decade in 2017, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s “2018 Fisheries of the United States” report.

Oyster producers have worked hard for their current success, knocking on the doors of restaurants and attending food service and retail trade shows. Croxton attributes the growth to “grassroots efforts, farmers, and chefs preaching this gospel of a highly efficient form of aquaculture.”

“It is very unlike a lot of aquaculture. It’s not just ‘Do no harm,’ it’s also ‘Do good.’ That message resonates with chefs and with people who are getting into it,” Croxton said.

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