Episode 6: Nicolette Mariano, Treasure Coast Shellfish

In this episode of OYSTER-ology, host Kevin Cox interviews Nicolette Mariano, owner of Treasure Coast Shellfish in Sebastian, Florida. Nicolette shares her journey from volunteering at a destroyed shellfish hatchery to managing her own sustainable oyster farm. They discuss topics like the challenges of aqua farming, environmental impacts and industry regulations, the stark realities of oyster farming, weather, oyster mortality, equipment and so much more. Despite starting Treasure Coast Shellfish alone at the onset of COVID by diving underwater to tend to her oysters, Nicolette has developed a thriving business known for its high-quality oysters and community-focused practices. This episode gives clear-eyed insight into starting a tiny farm and growing into something big and highly respected, with killer-good oysters.

Links:
Treasure Coast Shellfish website. https://www.treasurecoastshellfish.com/

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Transcript

Episode 6: Nicolette Mariano, Treasure Coast Shellfish

[00:00:00] (Bubbles)

Nicolette: Mother nature is our biggest business partner and there's no negotiating with her, absolutely no negotiating with her.

(Bubbles) 

Kevin: Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about oysters, aquaculture, and everything from spat to shuck. I'm your host, Kevin Cox. The first I heard of my guest, Nicolette Mariano, was in a short video clip of her donning a mask and snorkel and diving for oysters. Unlike so many oyster farmers who work from a boat or wade into thigh deep waters to tend their crop, Nicolette had to actually work underwater to set, clean, sort, and manage her young oyster farm, Treasure Coast Shellfish, in Sebastian, Florida.

As if that wasn't hard enough, she did it alone, as a tiny upstart operation which she started on the front end of COVID. It was a dream she had been hatching for years while learning about aquaculture and working with other oyster producers. 

[00:01:00] So I went to Florida to get the story straight from Nicolette, and when I got to her farm on the sparkling waters of the Indian River Lagoon I was surprised to see not a lonely woman jostling and heaving heavy mesh bags filled with oysters from the water to the side of the boat, but rather a full fledged oyster farm complete with floating gear, a processing barge and a boat, and a small crew of people who clearly enjoyed their work. 

With a background in marine science and a commitment to environmental preservation, Nicolette launched her tiny company with the goal of producing high quality oysters while giving back to the ecosystem. Today, she embodies the idea that one person can start with a solo grassroots dream and transform it into something that makes a difference, and in her case, establish the East Coast of Florida -- with only three oyster farms -- as an excellent oyster region. At Treasure Coast Shellfish, the focus is on clean, sustainable farming of a product which embraces the history of the place while cleaning the water and [00:02:00] creating new habitat.

Through her sustainable practices, Nicolette has made Treasure Coast Shellfish more than just an oyster farm, but a community oriented enterprise dedicated to protecting marine habitats and promoting responsible aquaculture. Her leadership has made the company a pioneer in environmentally conscious oyster production on Florida's east coast, and her efforts are inspiring a whole new generation of aquaculturists.

I joined the Treasure Coast Shellfish crew of Cody, Desiree, and Brent out on the lease that morning, where they harvested, sorted, and even shucked -- with a paint scraper -- oysters for that day's orders. Then I sat down with Nicolette, where I discussed a range of other topics, including land farming versus aqua farming; getting stuck deep in the mud in mangroves; oyster mortality; ignorant boaters driving through oyster farms; the challenges of getting seed; and the real cost of oyster farming with my guest, Nicolette Mariano.

Kevin: Hi Nicolette, thank you so much for being on [00:03:00] OYSTER-ology today, we are in Sebastian, Florida, which is where you have Treasure Coast Shellfish Company. And, I had the great pleasure of going out this morning with your crew onto the lease. And it was fantastic. So tell me a little bit about your background, and how you got into this world of oysters. 

Nicolette: Yeah, I'm a Floridian. born and raised down in Stewart, Florida, so just south of here, and went to college at Florida Tech in Melbourne, About 20, 30 minutes north of where we are right now.

I found out about aquaculture when I was 14, during the '04 and '05 hurricanes. When those two years just merged together with Charlie, Francis, Ivan, and Jean. 

Kevin: Which was such an unusual thing, right?

Nicolette: Yeah.

Kevin: You really are at the mercy of the weather. I mean, you're at the mercy of the weather to go out and harvest and do the work of farming. But. Much more so than that with hurricanes do you worry all the time? 

Nicolette: Yes. [00:04:00] Mother nature is our biggest business partner and there's no negotiating with her, absolutely no negotiating with her. I mean, like, Oh, we have this plan, what we're going to get done this week. And then a front comes through and, Oh, we got gusts up to 30, 40 knots, you know, pulling a cage up on the side of the boat. Someone's going to squish their fingers or, you know, it's not safe. And we're in that wider part of the lagoon too. So we're not protected by anything out there. 

Kevin: The lagoon is the Indian River Lagoon, which is gigantic. 

Nicolette: Yes. And the Indian River actually encompasses one third of the entire East Coast of Florida. And Florida's pretty big. 

The Indian River is one of the most biodiverse estuaries in North America. And where we're located, we're just south of the Sebastian Inlet and north of Pelican National Wildlife Refuge.

And Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge is the first wildlife refuge in the United States. 

Kevin: And was it because of Pelicans, hence the name or? 

Nicolette: Theodore Roosevelt. 

Kevin: Oh yeah. When you think about what [00:05:00] Roosevelt did around the country, I mean, preserving national parks and all of this, he was incredible.

Nicolette: Yeah. 

Kevin: So, the Indian River Lagoon, It's not like a river. I mean, it's got islands and barrier islands and 

Nicolette: It's a brackish water estuary. And an estuary is essentially a nursery with everything from your marine mammals, to your fish, crabs, bull sharks come in and pup in the Indian river.

Kevin: Really? Bull shark pups? Is that what they call them? 

Nicolette: Yeah. 

Kevin: Puppies that'll take your hand off if you pet them too much, I guess. 

Nicolette: Oysters have got you too. They're mother nature's razor blades. 

Kevin: So tell me a little bit about your background and how it led to aquaculture and what you did before you started Treasure Coast.

Nicolette: Yeah, so growing up in Stewart, I felt like any kid growing up in Florida that likes to be outside and in and on the water, you know, wants to do something with the environment. And be that marine biologist that specializes in dolphins and paints on the side.

And then, uh, the hurricanes in '04 and '05, I [00:06:00] just started volunteer orientation at the Florida Oceanographics and then, whichever storm came first, the following week I didn't get to volunteer because there was a hurricane and down the back was a destroyed shellfish hatchery. And I was 14 and went to clean up the nature trail. And I just kind of kept going back asking questions. had no idea at the time what it was.

And I was pulling out a tank. out of the mangroves. And I sunk up to my waist in muck. And that's when I thought, I know it wasn't quicksand, but that far deep.

It took four grown men to pull me out. 

Kevin: I can't imagine the sense of panic that you must've felt when you realized, I can't get out of here. What am I, what am I going to do now? 

Nicolette: I've never experienced anything like that -- as far as like getting stuck in something where you can't get yourself out of.  But yeah. And ironically enough, fast forward, um, I think probably my sophomore or junior year in college. I was doing some lab work, with [00:07:00] lionfish and, somebody was talking and I heard them talk about Florida Oceanographics.

And he was one of those guys that pulled me out. 

Kevin: Did he say like, "you were that kid?" 

Nicolette: Honestly, I don't even remember how they got me out. Probably like a pole or something. Yeah.

Kevin: Did you have any experience doing it beforehand so you had a clue what you were getting yourself into? 

Nicolette: Yes, my first job out of college, uh, was working with the town of Barnstable in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

We did shellfish stock enhancement for recreational shellfish and commercial shellfish. And then also, fortunate enough to do shellfish enforcement as well. So checking people's rec and commercial catch baskets and catch limits and things.

Kevin: So you were up there learning about that on your path toward Treasure Coast Shellfish, what was your next step after that?

Nicolette: It was my first job, in aquaculture. 

 Kevin: And you decided to come back down here. Was it just like, I think I'm going to do this myself, but [00:08:00] I'm going to do it in Florida? Or how did that happen? 

Nicolette: I'll give you the big cliff notes version. 

So then after that I was applying for jobs I Interviewed for a hatchery tech position 

I worked up in Maine. I worked in the hatchery. I did some algae culture. with the larvae and the babies. And then, cause up in Maine and New England, it's seasonal. Cause you're not going to be spawning. Nobody's going to want seed in the middle of winter when there's like a couple inches of ice, nothing's going to grow. so then I got to go out and work in the flupsy.that they have, then I also, worked out on the farm and the processing facility.

Kevin: So before you started your own oyster farm, you had had some exposure to sort of all aspects of oyster aquaculture from the hatchery and dealing with the microscopic larvae and growing them and did you deal with developing algae nutrient water that sort of thing? 

Nicolette: Yeah

Kevin: when you started the farm here, you were rack and bag on the bottom, describe what rack and bag is.[00:09:00] 

Nicolette: So rack and bag is actually an intertidal method. So it would be exposed during low tide. 

Kevin: Right. That 

Nicolette: I was using in a subtitle area where subtitle is it won't be exposed during low tide. Oh, 

Kevin: that's it. So an intertidal method in a subtitle environment. 

Nicolette: That was pretty much just to stay in the regulations and compliance of a bottom lease and that was to really get something out there to do R and D.

Kevin: how many racks did you have and how many bags do they hold or did they hold when you started? 

Nicolette: I started with one. And it was 10 foot pieces of rebar I got from Home Depot. 40 So 40 ish racks. And, six sacks fit to a rack. 

Kevin: What size seed do you usually put? In the water. 

Nicolette: We'd prefer to get six mil seed, but with Florida regulation, it's hard to get six millimeter seed from out of state. Because Florida has a zero tolerance policy for [00:10:00] pathogens. 

Kevin: I want to visualize what it was like for you at the very beginning when you had rack and bag down on the bottom. About how deep is the water where you were doing that? 

Nicolette: About five feet. 

Kevin: Okay. And how tall are you? Five, four? 

Nicolette: Yeah.

Kevin: So, how did you do it? 

Nicolette: Like a crazy person I threw the bags on a hurricane And it's literally like the side of the boat was maybe four inches from the water. So I could easily push the bags up onto that boat versus like the Carolina skiff, how high the gunnels are on there. And yeah, and my first crop was September 19 that I planted and very quickly, I think it was probably about within the first five months and it was warming up. I started noticing boring sponge. And boring sponge is a sea sponge that bores through the shell. You've ever shucked a oyster and it just kind of crumbles?

Kevin: Yeah. 

Nicolette: That's boring sponge. And [00:11:00] oysters naturally set in that inner tidal area, so they're exposed during both low tides a day, which will knock back predators, pests, and boring sponges, because boring sponges and sea sponges need to be 

Kevin: wet. So when the tide is down and the oysters are exposed to air, the sea sponges will die, or they won't come there in the first place?

Nicolette: They won't, yeah, they won't. And that's how I, I called, uh, and I was like, Hey, do you think I could go put these oysters laying out on the dock? Cause basically if not, the boring sponge is going to take over. 

Kevin: But to put these bags down on your racks, you had to dive down under the water to do that. Cause it's deep for you. you couldn't stand there and just set them. So how did you do that? 

Nicolette: I would toss the bags off, anchor the boat, And then I'd also, as more racks got out there, I'd have a stern rope. cause the current or change or the tide. So then I would tie the stern rope to a rack. part of that reason was because people don't know what a [00:12:00] dive flag means. 

So I literally would have the boat almost over top of me. So people wouldn't come. So I would go, I'd throw the bag down. I lay them, there's a certain way to go, then they get bungeed underneath to the bag or to the rack and Just a lot of up and down, holding your breath. 

Kevin: So you'd go up to the site where you want to lay these bags and just dump all of the bags over the side into a random pile and then you'd dive down, 

Nicolette: Not just in a random pile, so it depended like where the racks were and where there were spaces. One rack might be here, the next rack might be 10 feet away. So I would drive around and I tossed roughly where I thought they were. I had four floats on the edges of where the outer racks were. So I'd kind of like eyeball it or I would lay them on the side. Again, the hurricane was low or I'd lay them kind of halfway hanging it in front of me over. 

And I'd pull them off and then I'd use that stern rope and move around to where I want to do a lot more anchor rope.

Kevin: And you were [00:13:00] doing this alone, right? You were out in the water alone with a boat stacked high with bags of oysters, a dive flag floating there and you were using a mask and snorkel or scuba or what were you doing? 

Nicolette: Yep. Started out with mask and fins. 

Kevin: Wow. 

Nicolette: Mask and fins and then it turned into more racks. And more bags then started using, a third lung, air compressor or hookah. 

Kevin: Oh, that's good. So you don't have to worry about filling tanks and running out and having down times. 

Nicolette: Yeah. And then also again, with dive tanks, you're going to have to have a BC on, on the regulators and stuff. And I came to the water sometimes for two, three hours straight 

Kevin: Would you wear a weight belt to help stay down there? 

Nicolette: At that time I did, yeah. Or sometimes, well during winter with the wet suit, I'd have two on. But because on the surface, the oysters are moving around in the bags, in the cages, hitting up against each other, chipping that growth edge, creating hopefully a nice deep cup.

Nicolette: They're just in a bag near the bottom, nothing's moving them. So to get that cup shaped thing, That's where [00:14:00] I'd be underwater, physically shaking these guys. I was down there brushing like the algae on the bed sometimes with a peanut wood handle brush, like a crazy person, 

Kevin: I don't know all the different techniques of oyster farming, but that is very possibly the most difficult technique, right?

Because my God, you got to take them down there. You got to lash them down there. Then you got to maintain them by shaking them around so you can get some nice deep cups and clip off those little finger. 

Nicolette: Inner title method and a subtitle here. And that's, that was the only way I could get something out there and to stay within Florida regulations while researching and looking at to do water column.

Kevin: Yeah, sure. That was, that was your plan all along. 

Nicolette: Yeah, that was. No, the racking bag, definitely not sustainable. 

Kevin: The biofoul I would think would have been a major problem because it's never getting exposed to the air. So you've got to scrub it off.

Nicolette: It was mainly. The boring sponge. 

So I was, I was working them [00:15:00] enough. I was at least shaking those bags once a week. And then in the beginning it was more because there wasn't that many bags or that many racks. so things weren't setting. Just like a boat. If your boat keeps moving, 

stuff's not going to grow on it. 

Kevin: Your bottom's not going to get as fouled. 

So how did your oysters come out when you were doing it? Racking back like that and just by brute force, shaking 'em, keeping 'em moving, defouling them.

Nicolette: They were good. They were, they had a nice shape to 'em. 

Kevin: You got good deep cups and all of that. 

Nicolette: Yeah

Kevin: You don't have a hatchery here at Treasure Coast, right?  

Nicolette: No. I would love to. Cause that's where it all starts. 

Kevin: So where do you get your seed then? 

Nicolette: We've been fortunate enough to work with a hatchery in Virginia. with Florida, there aren't a lot of oyster hatcheries and we're on the east coast and we're one of three farms. And oysters, whether they're diploid oysters that reproduce or triploids oysters that don't reproduce, they cannot go from the Atlantic to the [00:16:00] Gulf in Florida. Triploids can go from the Gulf to the Atlantic. It's part genetics they're worried about but primarily the chances of spreading some different diseases that have been present at some point on the East Coast we should be focused more on, well, why can't we get oyster seed from the Atlantic to the Gulf? If you test the oyster seed or even larvae, when they're like not even a month old in a self contained recirculated system in a hatchery 

Nicolette: and then get them like pathology tested.

That's very young. There's no chance of them really getting disease. 

Kevin: There are hatcheries in Hawaii that are sending, you know, seed to Washington state and maybe even all the way over to the East coast. I don't know. 

Nicolette: On Kona. Yeah. I visited that area and I was like, what? And I can't even just get seed and we're connected over here It does seem, there aren't that many seed producers in the United States, really, that are producing large scale seed to sell to [00:17:00] other farmers, Uh, there are. Oyster Seed Holding, we have been very fortunate to work with them. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to use like local broodstock, parent oysters to our growing area. It just it just makes sense like using parent oysters from our growing area naturally To then create babies because um You know, to be able to give back to the environment. I mean, diploid spawn, then they set all over your gear and other oysters, and it's a pain in the butt, but to be giving back to the lagoon, 

So from the beginning I knew that I Wanted and needed and should do that 

and they're doing really good the diploids 

 Kevin: so I did notice on your dock you had up wellers along the one side 

 Nicolette: So that's a private aquaculture dock that we're renting and in an agreement on with the owners and then also The lease that's a special dock. It's also zoned as an aquaculture lease. But it's a permanently closed area You can't harvest from [00:18:00] there 

But 

Kevin: It sounds like you have a pretty nice kind of co existing relationship together. I mean, you're sharing the dock do you get along with them?

Nicolette: yeah, I mean, that's the industry here. That's it. It's just us. So yeah, we do really,cohabitate and work well, you know in the same space, 

 I mean, I got lucky with the lease I have. I proposed to the state, 

 a rectangle, so, like, setting up floating cages wasn't the greatest, but, That's all zoned as bottom lease, so you can only use the six inches off the bottom.

 and I understand it from a regulatory standpoint, but I mean, before the, even the rack and bags, when I installed those, It was like, desolate. It was a, it was a desert with the tumbleweed going by, uh, and that was underwater, 

Kevin: And it's creating an ecosystem. yeah, by putting things on the bottom like that, you're going to actually be enhancing it.

Nicolette: Yeah, different species and aquatic vegetation and plants like encroach [00:19:00] because you got a bunch of oysters that are filtering the water with their feces and pseudopeces essentially like fertilizer.

Kevin: and all of a sudden you have a whole new environment. 

 Nicolette: that's, and that's what's great with the floating gear it creates that vertical, three dimensional habitat.

Kevin: When you have floating cages like what you've got that aren't actually touching the bottom. Does this new ecosystem develop as quickly or is it a slower process? 

Nicolette: so. I think even if we just started originally with floating cages, 

It probably would have been the same as the bottom gear. 

 I grew up on this river. I have never seen a live bay scallop in the Indian river in my entire life until two years ago. 

And every year there's been a different species that has been like recruiting 

 last summer was seahorses. And one stone crab. We called him, Mr. Stoney . You, Mr. Stoney. Mr. Stoney, the stone crab,

Kevin: Do you know if Mr. Stoney is still hanging around, 

Nicolette: No, I think one of those wind storms or squalls, you know, I think cover it up, [00:20:00] and that crab went somewhere else.

Yeah. 

Kevin: So, you had your rack and bags on the bottom and then you got your permits finally. and what do you call the way you grow them now? You know, in the 

Nicolette: Floating gear.

Kevin: It's just floating gear? 

Nicolette: Yep, the cages, they're floating cages, that's floating gear, or So that's a water column lease, so you're using the water column that's at the bottom, which is, for Florida, that's six inches off the bottom.

Okay. Um, even at the dock is floating, the pods you saw that are getting power washed in the back, that's floating gear. 

so I used the floating bags out there, because we needed more space.

Kevin: Yeah. 

Nicolette: Wasn't in that position to be able to get more cages. 

Kevin: Those cages look expensive. What is a typical cage like that cost when you buy it new? 

Nicolette: everything's gone up a metal plastic. I mean, COVID, you know, 

prices went through the roof When I started, I think one bag was like $5, and they're like, the flat bags that would box out, I think they were like [00:21:00] 7 or $8 last time. And then you gotta build them out.

the infrastructure, that's, that's another thing, you know, the infrastructure is a lot. So, I think right now, it's probably like $215 per cage, 

Kevin: that's a big investment.

And you, I mean, you gotta, grow a lot of oysters to get that back and then make a profit. 

Nicolette: Yeah. between the infrastructure and the gear and labor costs. I mean, you know, our boat is our tractor, and maintaining the boats and the engines and everything else, I mean, a lot of people are like, Oh, that's really expensive for an oyster. It's not like wild harvest. You're not going out. With a boat, tonging or picking them up. We are taking care of these oysters from the time they're like the size of your pinky nail, which is about six millimeters, like Skittles size, or even smaller, like one millimeter, the size of a pinhead. 

and we're fortunate that we can get market product within eight to eighteen months. Down here. 

some [00:22:00] areas of you know in Maine in the northeast and then even Canada I mean, it's three to five years, you know, it's about five to six years in Alaska because the 

Kevin: water is just so cold as opposed to here where there's a lot of algae in the water a lot of year round Right, year round.

So, so how many cage, how many floating cages do you have now? 

Nicolette: There is. 420 out there right now. 

One main line. Our main line is 150 feet and 14 cages fit on one line. I see. And one cage fits four bags. So I think that's 56 bags per line. 

Kevin: And you have 14 of those? 

Nicolette: Yes. 

Kevin: That's a lot of oysters. 

Nicolette:And someone's gonna drive through it with a boat due to lack of knowledge. 

Kevin: Do you have a lot of problems with people driving over your lease or doing other nasty things to them? 

Nicolette: Yes. We are the only ones out there. 

Kevin: Right. [00:23:00] So it's not like they say, Oh, lots of oyster farms out here. Be careful. 

Nicolette: I've tried to work with different entities, agencies, if you will, to get educational signage at boat ramps. Cedar Key's done a wonderful job with their signs and it could be like plug and play almost with the design and just put in different, information, local information for that area and they're removable.

So it's not like, like. A permanent sign and then something's outdated and change it. but people need to know a lot of people Don't know what it is Even our regulatory agencies. I mean again, we are the only one, I mean, 4th of July at the end of the dock.

there's clam bags there. That's the lease, the 4th of July parade going on. We're working. And the sheriff's boat goes right through where the clam bags are. Like 

Kevin: The sheriff's boat? 

Nicolette: three feet off the dock. 

Kevin: They're not thinking about these leases. 

Nicolette: It's just like anybody out there.

Like most of the people who ask about stuff are [00:24:00] from Canada, the Northeast. Other countries that have seen aquaculture. before we were on the dock, you know, every day going out, watching the boat. Oh, what'd you catch, ? Did you guys have a good day of fishing?

Oh, are those crab pots? ? What do you got in the back? 

You know, it's just, the lack of knowledge. But I mean, we're it until New Smyrna? 

Kevin: why do you think that there aren't more oyster farms along here. 

Nicolette: it was very prolific with clam farmers it was filled back in the day. And, I was told, kind of in the early 2000 productivity and survivorship wasn't doing as great for the hard clams and then back to back those 'O4 and 'O5 hurricanes. Pretty much like the last couple of years, like the golf just hitting back to back. I mean, whether you're an established company, Or start especially if you're starting out, and you bootstrapping it or took loans out or refinance Something or took out, you know on your house.

Kevin: [00:25:00] it's a big investment when you talk about just the cost of just the gear itself, but then you add the labor onto it 

Nicolette: And 

Kevin: you've got a big lease. what's the total size of your lease right now? 

Nicolette: the survey I like to go with is 6. 665. 

Kevin: acres. 

Nicolette: Yeah. So I had to get the leasery survey prior and it comes back. It's like, oh, 6. 66 acres. I'm like, can we just bump it down to 6. 64? Like I'm not superstitious, but 

everything going, I'm just like, oh 

my gosh. So 

Nicolette: just under, just under seven acres and we're using about 33 percent of it 

Kevin: so You've got a lot of gear in the water and a pretty big space. When I first learned about you and your operation, I did a little research trying to find out about it and, it was from four years ago or something like that, when you were still kind of getting started and figuring it out and doing rack & bag. 

Nicolette: Yeah. 

Kevin: then when I talked to you and then [00:26:00] especially today, when I went out to your lease, it was like, Oh my God, I mean, you have grown this thing. It's remarkable what you've done.

 How did you do it so fast?

Nicolette:  I don't know. I don't look. Like every year there's just been like a couple people, a couple things, somebody helping, somebody in the beginning giving gear, giving time. I mean, and then during, you know, as we've grown, so I think it was 22.I have to look back. I'm like, I can't do this by myself. And then in a few months, like, well, I don't have market product and things weren't growing.

And I'm like, you know, and did what I needed to do. Sold some of my personal stuff, put personal money, back into the business. And went through those seven months and then 23, got on with a couple other wholesalers. And we were shipping a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff to Georgia. I [00:27:00] swear at the time the crew was going to have a mutiny on me. Cause we were working five days a week, and then Sunday, we were going out at sunrise, like right now it's 6:30, cause the sun's just coming up, once it's lighter it'll be 6:00. 

We were going out and harvesting, and I'm like, we just have to harvest, we gotta do, cause we, time and temperature, we, At that time, it's 11, we couldn't do 10, 000.

So we're doing about half of our orders on Sunday and everyone was done by about 12 or one. And then the other half on Monday to meet the trucks on Monday, we had stuff going to Georgia that day on Monday. I think we had stuff going out to Alabama too, working with a wholesaler at the time out there.

And so that's the other thing is like stuff that was going out to, Alabama, if it didn't get on that truck that day, 

we were done that week, I had to go out that day. then just learning like these freight routes and stuff.

And it's hard to just start from the beginning. Like I can't get pretty much almost any of these third party refrigerated freight companies to give me a [00:28:00] quote. 

Kevin: Really? Is it because they're just so busy or too full or 

Nicolette: Small peanuts. Hey, well, what do you want to move? Oh, like 20 bags of oysters. What's the pallet.  I think, I think that's part of it. 

 Kevin: So, I'm trying to picture how you do it. how big is your crew right now?

Nicolette: About five people. 

Kevin: Did you have a high mortality rate Or was it kind of whatever the average would be? 

Nicolette: I'd say like typical, you know, mortality. Yeah, a few here, a few there. 

It's one of those things that you don't know, because when you hear mortality, wholesalers, restaurants, oh, something's wrong, someone's going to get sick. 

Kevin: Right. 

Nicolette: You know how many cows died last year from heat stroke?

Kevin: Yeah, Mortality is a natural part of any kind of farming.

Nicolette: It happens in your garden. anyone who's at least tried to grow cucumbers at some point, you know, have had like a white [00:29:00] fly or some type of an issue. But, the whole triploid mortality, it's devastating. I mean, our 2022 crop was stressed out their entire lives. we didn't have a lot of rain, there wasn't really any algae in the water, so they starved for five to six months. Then they got shaken around for about a month between Hurricane Ian and Nicole. and now there's food in the water! You know, where we got seed in like maybe June and July, now it's September. Finally eating! And then, oh, water's getting cooler it's Winter. And then, hurricane for the next summer, then 23, there was record breaking land temperatures. Yeah. 

I mean our logger out there hit 92. I was the highest and I think the salinity at one point hit 37 

Kevin: Wow So hot and salty. 

Nicolette: We had mortality in our diploids and triploids, but primarily the triploids 

Kevin: Do you deal primarily with? Wholesalers or direct to consumer? What kind of [00:30:00] ordering processes? 

Nicolette: We do all of it. We do retail, wholesale, wholesale to wholesalers, wholesale direct to restaurants 

 In the beginning I did direct restaurants. Cause I was driving either to New Smyrna or Tampa to get the oysters processed before we became a certified processing facility. I was literally driving three or four hours in one direction to get them processed.

Kevin: so a day in the life for you involves managing your crew, telling them what you need, making sure it's getting done, right. Making sure the product is up to the standards that you're setting, 

Nicolette: Taking order of trying to do social media, respond to emails, retail, all the backend of running a business. Office work or paperwork,payroll, bills, all that. 

Kevin: Do you ever sleep?

Nicolette: Rarely. I need it though. I do need sleep. I'm one of those people that their brain just starts going, and it's hard [00:31:00] for it to shut off. I've always been, like a high stress kind of individual. 

Kevin: plus, in addition to the pier and the barge and the lease out there, we're sitting in this office processing facility which is filled with gear and your amazing walk in cooler. so you've got to maintain gear too, right? 

Nicolette: yeah the gear You know making the bags fixing the lines the cages like the cage out there had to swap out the float had a hole in it You know, so there's a lot.

It is a farm. It's a farm that's on the water. I mean, you got to till your crop. You got to turn the soil. You got to change out spark plugs, and the oil, and the tractor, and you know, tires, and different things. And it's the same. It's just different. Our tools are different. Our methods are different than your typical land farmer, 

Kevin: I find the notion of oyster farming and doing what you do to be this beautiful thing that's really interesting and great for the environment, but the details are daunting. I mean, when [00:32:00] I look at, look at what you're doing and hear you talk about it, it's like, holy shit, this is a lot. 

Nicolette: Yeah, I can't believe where Treasure Coast Shellfish is in just like four years.

Kevin: So how is business? do you have, a range of production that you aim for every year? And are you able to hit those targets? 

Nicolette: So I have nothing to compare it to. Because I started with COVID and my first crop was ready in April ish and all the restaurants closed in June.

Kevin: So you kind of beat all the odds on this thing. It's pretty crazy. 

Nicolette: So you didn't know how big you should be or needed to be or could possibly be because COVID and just never having done this and nobody else here doing it.

Yeah, it's just kind of, and then the whole thing is like getting a Southern oyster into the market. Yes, we're in Florida. But the further south you go the further north you go, and a lot of people, you know, your seasonal people They [00:33:00] come up they come down from New England Especially on the East Coast.

So a similar flavor profile, you know I felt like would go a long way trying to get it into the market, you know knocking on those doors and You know, the historic of a Florida oyster is a wild Apalachicola, a three or larger inch oyster. That's a Florida oyster. that's the mentality and then, you know, knocking, going in the back doors of restaurants with this two and a half inch oyster and the chef's the owner's looking at you like what the heck is that little thing? 

 until you shuck it open and then the meat basically goes to the edge You can get a three inch oyster with like two inches of meat in it 

 That's where we came up with, our Treasure Coast Oyster. Um, same great flavor, just a different shape. You know, that's a different size range and a larger size range of two and a half to three and a half inches.

Kevin: how many different oyster sizes or types do you sell?

Nicolette: Yeah, we have three main brands [00:34:00] Or just one of our Treasure Coast Oysters And then what we started with is our Sebastian Silver the play on a petite two and a half inches to two and three quarter inches right because your typical petite is two inches I never heard of a petite until I lived up north.

You don't really hear about petite in the south, so. They're so 

Kevin: Small by southern standards, right? 

Nicolette: Exactly! Yeah. 

And then, our Gold Doublooms is three inches and larger, so. And all that is a play off of this historical significance of the Treasure Coast and the 1715 Treasure fleet that sunk off of our coast, so.

Kevin: Yeah. So right. This is a big shipwreck area historically. So how would you describe. the flavor profile of your oysters. 

Nicolette: pretty much the Gold Doubloons typically are, I feel like they're pretty briny all the way through. And then the Sebastian Silvers are smaller oysters. Uh, they're briny up front with a little bit of a sweeter finish [00:35:00] typically.

Kevin: Yeah. I found, it was kind of a little, kiss on the cheek by the ocean when you first take that slurp. And then I got sweetness and kind of a fresh mushroomy finish, a little umami. they were really good. 

Nicolette: 

I feel like their flavor profile is a little more complex during the winter months because they're feeding on different algaes and sometimes like different diatoms too. Versus, versus the summer. 

Kevin: Yeah, what would you say is your least favorite part -- I mean, even the best job in the world has things about it that suck. 

Nicolette: The administration work. Yeah, I think a lot of people get into business because, it's something that they enjoy to do. Then they start their own business, and then it starts to grow, and then You're stuck in the office more, which is one of the things you don't want to be doing. So there's a lot of time in kind of business development as well as all the other administrative tasks that you get to play with all the time. You know, I never wanted to be in a cubicle. I didn't even [00:36:00] want to be in an office. And, you know, that's where I'm needed right now as the business is growing. 

Kevin: What percentage of time do you spend in the office versus out on the pier or on the barge or somewhere? 

Nicolette: Unfortunately, most of it now. 

Kevin: It sounds like you're doing a lot of speaking engagements and you're getting around in the broader industry. Is that something that you want to do more of? 

Nicolette: Yeah... I say that like hesitantly because, I mean, 24/7 for 4 years, I'll be honest, I'm tired.

Then again, it is the growing pains too. 

This is my baby. I literally started this by myself. No help. I mean, I've been out there by myself, struggling, trying to harvest stuff with the cages and wind blowing, people couldn't come in, something happened, whatever, but, you gotta get it done.

Kevin: Where do you see yourself in five years? 

Nicolette: The main goal is to still be in [00:37:00] business. 

I'm waiting for seed, you know, so there's that whole aspect of the need for seed, especially in the South. We're dependent on some northern hatcheries and they're not producing They slowed down they shut down like me 

Kevin: I don't know how you do it, Nicolette. I will say that, the proof is in the pudding and, Some of your crew shucked a few oysters for me out there today, and they were sensational. 

Nicolette: You know you got a good oyster when the farmer knows how to shuck with a paint scraper. 

Kevin: I'm so glad you said that because I forgot. I have never seen anybody shuck an oyster with a paint scraper, but he did it better than I do it with a really nice little shucking knife. 

Nicolette: I know, sometimes I'm like with my like, Duxbury knife, and I'm like, I just want to use a paint scraper.

Kevin:  Right. Well, Nicolette, congratulations on everything you're doing and you're amazing, and your farm is amazing, and I can't wait to eat more of your oysters, so.

Nicolette: Yeah. Thank you for coming out with us today, [00:38:00] Kevin

Kevin: Well, that's it for this episode of OYSTER-ology. Thanks to my guest Nicolette Mariano. As always show notes can be found on this episode's page. And if you enjoyed it, please rate or review it on whatever podcast platform you listen on. I'm your host, Kevin Cox. Join me next week when we pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic..
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