Episode 10: Of Oysters, Passion and Local Enterprise: Emily Wilder's Journey to Salinity Seafood & More

In this episode of OYSTER-ology Kevin explores the intricate world of Olympia oysters with guest Emily Wilder. Emily shares her unique journey from being a pescatarian on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound to becoming a shellfish farming advocate and discovering her true passion to be a small business entrepreneur. She discusses her experiences working on oyster farms, her realization of the importance of sustainable seafood marketing and how she established Salinity Seafood & More to bridge the gap between consumers, artisans and high-quality local products. The conversation describes the distinct qualities of Olympia oysters, their historical significance, sustainable farming practices and Emily's plans for her future. Tune in to hear Emily soothingly weave together the multifaceted world of oysters, environmental stewardship and the importance of supporting local businesses.

00:00 Introduction to Olympia Oysters

00:39 Welcome to Oysterology

01:04 Emily Wilder's Journey

04:03 Discovering Shellfish Farming

07:03 The Evergreen State College Shellfish Club

08:35 Marketing and Business School

10:59 Working with Island Creek Oysters

13:20 Returning to the West Coast

16:34 The Unique Olympia Oyster

34:38 Salinity Seafood and More

45:55 Future Plans and Conclusion

LINKS:
Salinity Seafood & More website
(https://eatsalinity.com/)

Salinity Seafood & More  Instagram site 
(https://www.instagram.com/eatsalinity/)

Emily's Geoduckgal Instagram site
(https://www.instagram.com/geoduckgal/)

Skagit Shellfish
(https://skagitshellfish.com/)

Swinomish Shellfish Company
(https://swinomishshellfishcompany.com/)

The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World, by Rowan Jacobsen. Bloomsbury USA; First Edition (September 1, 2009)
(https://www.amazon.com/Living-Shore-Rediscovering-Lost-World/dp/1596916842)

The Evergreen State College, Olympia Washington
(https://www.evergreen.edu/)

Please be sure to Like and Follow OYSTER-ology wherever you listen to podcasts, and tell others about it. Every positive mention of it helps more people find the podcast!

Transcript

Episode 10: Of Oysters, Passion and Local Enterprise: Emily Wilder's Journey to Salinity Seafood & More

[00:00:00]

Bubbles

Emily: For Olympia oysters, it's similar to a single malt scotch, so most other oysters are like a really good blend from Costco, and a lot of those are, the same as the high end brands. They're just in a different, you know, Kirkland packaging, So it'll be delicious and you can drink tons of it and it'll be really great. But if you get, one of those incredibly expensive single malt scotch and you like slowly sip on it and the flavor changes as you're eating it, you go through a whole bunch of different layers of flavor. Like that's an Olympia oyster to me.

Bubbles

Kevin: Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about the wide world of oysters, aquaculture, and everything from spat to shuck. I'm your host, Kevin Cox.

It's rare to meet someone who has discovered their life's purpose and what really makes them happy. Finding your calling and then managing to weave it through your life [00:01:00] is pretty hard to do. And my guest, Emily Wilder did just that. Growing up on beautiful Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Emily had a close connection to the land and the surrounding sea. In our in-depth interview, she shares her personal journey from growing up as a pescetarian to discovering her passion for shellfish farming in college. We talk about her professional experiences, including working on oyster farms, and her eventual, unexpected realization that her calling was NOT to be an oyster farmer. Instead, she needed to be a connector, bridging the gap between consumers and authentic high quality products sourced locally. Her path led her to Bentley University for an MBA, and ultimately creating Salinity Seafood & More, a business designed to support the marketing and promotion of local small businesses and, of course, oysters.

Emily has brought together artisans, farmers, and consumers, and forged alliances with two unique [00:02:00] oyster farms specializing in sustainable farming of Olympia and local Pacific oysters. Her story is a vibrant tapestry of environmental stewardship, cultural heritage, and culinary adventure, all centered around the crown jewel of oysters in America: the Olympia. 

She reveals the historical environmental context of Olympias, and their unique characteristics and cultural significance. Emily's journey is a testament to her deep-rooted passion for America's true native oyster, and for small business empowerment. So get ready to meet the OG oyster of the West Coast, and learn about college run oyster farms; describing how an oyster tastes; The Japanese oyster invasion; what a penny and an oyster have in common; the taste of a pink cloud; the footloose rumspringa days of an oyster's life; oyster eyes and hair; oyster's role in human history; and centering your life [00:03:00] around the thing you love with my Olympia oyster expert and small business entrepreneur, Emily Wilder.

Bubbles

Kevin: Emily, it is so great to have you on OYSTER-ology. I've looked at your website. I've talked to you a few times and we are sitting in beautiful Whidbey Island where you are based in an Airbnb that I'm staying in on Cornet Bay at Deception Pass. And it is absolutely beautiful. I can't think of a better place to meet you in person and learn about Salinity and everything you do. So welcome.

Emily: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your reason why you are here on Whidbey

Emily: Yeah So I grew up here on the south end of Whidbey Island born and raised in Clinton by the ferry on the other end of the island and I grew up as a pescatarian. So we Didn't eat any meat because we objected to the way that a lot of [00:04:00] animals were treated, but we ate a lot of wild Alaskan salmon. And when I got older and I wanted to, um, figure out what I was going to do with my life, I ended up at the Evergreen State College and I happened upon a shellfish farm that they were running.

They needed somebody to take over. And that was when I realized, that my life's purpose is to, um, you know, to teach myself and other people how we can be responsible about what it is that we're eating. So if we choose to eat meat, which I do now, we make sure that it is, you know, the best possible that we can get. And when we're eating. fish or seafood that we think is more sustainable than that meat, actually making sure that it is. You know, it wasn't until I was on the beach when I realized how little I knew about where all the seafood was actually coming from, you know, the shrimp that you get at a restaurant, thinking about, Where is that from?

So, growing [00:05:00] up on an island, I was always obsessed with the water; needed to be around it all the time. But maybe because of that, I didn't think about it quite as much as I did once I started getting into oysters.

Kevin: And there appears to be a lot of farming as well, including animal farming,

Emily: Yes, there are many farms here and, I'm pretty sure this is still a fact, but I heard that the, we had the highest yield of wheat, um, at Ebey's Landing in the middle of the island, in Coupeville, like a hundred years ago. Highest yield per acre. Okay. Don't quote me on that because I am definitely not a land farmer.

Kevin: Well, it's clearly though the kind of place where you can stick any plant in the ground and tell it's gonna grow. The soil is so fertile.

Emily: Absolutely. All you need is a whole lot of money So, you know, I that's part of you know the other story of why I'm here is I went to Evergreen thinking maybe I would be a farmer and I took a lot of agriculture classes um and [00:06:00] realized that, you know, number one, I don't really like to be dirty and out in the hot sun all of the time, which is kind of a requirement.

 And also that there were so many people who wanted to do that work, but needed, the person behind the computer helping them make that actually happen. You know, how much you need for funding and for marketing and just like the importance of being able to tell the story of what you're doing and why you're doing it, um, in order to actually make it truly sustainable.

Meaning that it can sustain itself. And that's the biggest difficulty, especially on Whidbey Island as we're seeing a whole lot more development and growth that's becoming increasingly hard for my friends who are, you know, starting farms and trying to get things and keep things going.

Kevin: And in addition to land farming, this is the one of the shellfish, mussels, oysters, and I guess probably clam capitals of the Northwest and maybe of the entire country. But I wanted [00:07:00] to ask you, I've heard so many people make reference to the evergreen state college shellfish club can you tell me about that? Because I think this is a unique thing in the country is that right?

Emily: As far as we know it is the only college with a purely academic shellfish farm That is, it started out as a completely student run club, actually.

So it was started in 2012 by Nate Bernitz and Derrick King. And it was inspired by a book called The Living Shore by Rowan Jacobson, So that started, down at the evergreen beach, which is a remarkable campus because it has a thousand acres of beautiful forest that protects two miles of beach down in Eld Inlet and South Puget Sound. So they wanted to take advantage of that amazing resource and the way that the school supports student initiatives. so. I took over, from Nate [00:08:00] and Derek in 2014 when they both graduated. And throughout the first, six years or so of its existence, That was, you know, a work party every two weeks at low tide with as many students as you could get.

And so we would provide the gear and the education, you know, you do some work on the farm and then you get to eat as many oysters as you can. And that's part of the education, of course, you know, talking about what are the flavor profiles, how does this compare to other food that we've eaten, how does it connect us to, where we are.

So that's what got me into marketing, um, was learning how to, you know, convince someone to eat an oyster for the first time and then thinking maybe this is applicable to other kinds of food and other kinds of businesses as well. You know, how do you convince someone to spend a little bit more money on something that has broader impacts?

Kevin: So you actually ran the shellfish [00:09:00] operation down there while you were there? I had, yeah. Two and a half, right? Was

Emily: Yes. Yes. Two and a half years. And remember, I, you know, work parties on a shellfish farm are, um, at low tide, which is at midnight in the winter. Yes. It, it's cold and dark, right?

Yes. So, um, fall and winter quarter, it was every two weeks lead, 30 students through the woods. it's like a. 20, 30 minute walk through the dark evergreen woods down to the beach often in the rain. And I was, you know, I was younger. Um, but that's definitely what burnt me out on farming for good.

Um, for me, it made me realize that there are people who really love this and I much prefer helping facilitate their work.

Kevin: So you decided instead of continuing on with hands on, kind of boots in the mud farming, To go to business school, ?

Emily: Yes. Um, first I, I tried my hand at managing a restaurant in [00:10:00] Olympia that had a really amazing local sourcing.

So that's kind of what sucked me into that side of it was figuring out just how difficult it is for small business owners and trying to think of, you know, how can we make that a little bit easier?

Kevin: So was your kind of your long term goal to focus on small businesses

Emily: Yes. Um, at that point when I went to business school at Bentley university and near Boston, I had intended, maybe leaving oysters and just focusing on small businesses in general, you know, particularly food based ones. But at that point I was like, you know, I love oysters, but You know, I'm being called to do this.

And then when I graduated from business school with my MBA, I realized there's no way I could leave oysters. I mean, who can leave oysters? Exactly. I was like, you want me to pay full price for them? I don't know. Let me find a job in the industry again. Um, so right out of [00:11:00] grad school, I took a much lower paying job than my grad school advisors were trying to get me to take, at Island Creek Oysters, down in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

So I was a tour guide for their hatchery there and I got to just, you know, teach as much as possible about climate change, life cycle, how it all fit together in 45 minutes before I People did the real thing that they wanted, which was go out and about and eat a whole bunch of oysters.

Kevin: But talking, learning about the hatchery and talking about the hatchery is pretty complicated because there's a lot of science in that as well.

Emily: Exactly, so how do you make the science fun and funny So yeah, that was a lot of fun for me to refine that. But then, I had a lot of people asking, what's your favorite oyster? And I was supposed to say, you know, one of the Island Creek oysters, but I always had an Olympia oyster shell in my pocket and I would tell them, you know, go over to the West coast and, uh, try this oyster.

Kevin: That must have been interesting.

Emily: Yeah, They were a little bit surprised I would [00:12:00] say, um, because Most most people over on the east coast even in the oyster world.

They haven't heard of olympia oysters, And they definitely don't Think of them as highly because they're not the flavor profile that they're expecting And so that's a big part of what I learned at Island Creek oysters was just how important marketing is you know, they have a spectacular marketing team They have spectacular oysters as well, but Island Creek really puts money into their marketing and their message And from the beginning they've always been very good at telling their story and telling a compelling story,

Kevin: So marketing is such a critical component of this

Emily: It is. And, you know, people get kind of scared of the word marketing and they think that it's got to be all like slimy salesperson

 You know, and um, it is just, how are you telling your story? How are you using available tools to tell it?

Kevin: it seems like people do prefer a calmer, genuine message and talking straight about [00:13:00] things as opposed to the glitz and glam. Is that something you found also?

Emily: Absolutely. You just have to make sure that you're doing it in a way that feels genuine and good, so that you're not, selling Something you don't believe in.

 Kevin: How long were you at Island Creek?

Emily: Um, it was just a few months.

Kevin: And then what brought you back to the West Coast?

Emily: Um, it was the Them saying please stop talking about the Olympia Oyster and talk about our oysters instead You know, I mean that's Yes, I'm really sorry I loved working there I loved their oysters, but they're just not Olympia Well,

I mean, it was also, you know, I had, I had been there for two years, and I wanted to get back to my family and my friends.

Um, so I was just on a short vacation, back here and with my friends and they immediately found a job listing a Taylor shellfish for a national sales rep and I applied. I got [00:14:00] the job, moved back home.

Kevin: So you've worked with a couple of the most prestigious oyster operations and largest ones as well, especially Taylor.

Emily: And also the nicest, that's, I haven't really met anyone in the shellfish industry. That's not really nice and great. Um, but I would say those two companies are very impressive, um, as far as I'm concerned working there.

Kevin: And so from Taylor, is that when you decided to go out on your own?

Emily: Um, it was a little bit separated. So I was at Taylor Shellfish doing restaurant sales, you know, they, they had a team already doing like the I 5 corridor between Portland and Bellingham. Right. And they hired me to do the rest of the country and it was a little bit difficult because we already had a big presence, with a lot of distributors who already sold the oysters to different parts of the country.

Um, and then the pandemic hit [00:15:00] and the restaurants shut down. And suddenly I was shifted over to their customer service for their retail store, which increased 700%, doing direct sales to people's houses. So that was both very fun and very difficult because you have about 7 percent of shipments not arrive on time, which means dead oysters, which smell bad to them and they feel bad for me because it's, you know, oysters that die, you know, it's one of the most tragic things, right?

Um, so I was getting a little bit burnt out on, on dealing with those emotions and trying to separate their disappointment from my own, needing to deal with the job. And it was also, you know, height of the pandemic working at a big processing plant with hundreds of other people.

So I started to really feel like this wasn't good for my physical or mental health. And I [00:16:00] wanted to move back to Whidbey Island.

So I left that job, in fall of 2020 and moved back to Whidbey Island so that I could do something that was remote. And then I was looking for jobs and started contacting, um, oyster farms that had Olympia oysters to see if any of them needed help with marketing.

 And then I happened upon the two that I work with now, Skagit Shellfish and Swinomish Shellfish.

Kevin: I want to understand Why your obsession with Olympia oysters Tell me tell me about Olympia's and your thoughts about them

Emily: You know, I've been trying to pinpoint like when it actually started. It wasn't right away that I was introduced to them. I fell in love with oysters through eating Pacific oysters fresh off of the beach. reading The Living Shore by Rowan [00:17:00] Jacobson, learning about the history of this oyster that is native to the Pacific Northwest.

And you know, everyone loves an underdog. The Olympia oyster was almost wiped out a hundred years ago. And it has just been, through the efforts of a few farms that have kept growing them, including Taylor Shellfish and Chelsea Farms down in South Puget Sound. it's because of them that they've been able to keep small populations of them growing.

And then there's been work discovering a couple tiny pockets of the wild ones that were left. And the, the book focuses on some that they found up in British Columbia. Like, deep in the coves, out in the wild. And I. Fell in love with this nonprofit that's doing a lot of work to restore them, Puget Sound Restoration Fund, who Rowan does this work with in the book.

And the, the longtime, I believe she's the, was the director of [00:18:00] PSRF, Betsy Peabody made a skirt out of Olympia oyster shells. And that just blew me away. You know, it's like when you, when you find your heroes and you're just like, I want to be you. I want to do what you're doing. I want to help whatever it is that you're doing. Um, so I think that was a big part of it.

Kevin: Pacifics and all of the variations of that, and the Asian strains that we have, Are not indigenous to this area just the Oly’s, correct?

Emily: Yeah, so they were eaten a lot during the gold rush.

And, at the height of the gold rush, when there were a ton of people down in San Francisco, they were shipping giant barrels of Olympia oysters from Puget Sound. Down to San Francisco. And of course, this was before they had stringent food safety regulations, which is a big part of why people are scared of oysters is there were a lot of mistakes made in the past, not [00:19:00] knowing that they need to be refrigerated, that we need to test the water that you need to not, you know, dump a whole bunch of pollution right into the water next to where you're growing the oysters.

So there were some large factories in Puget Sound that also killed a whole bunch of the oysters. And that was, kind of the end of them in a lot of ways, down in South Puget Sound. They take, um, you know, five years to get two inches in size compared to, six months, nine months to get two inches in size for the Eastern species and the Japanese ones.

So they quickly started looking at, you know, how can we bring in these other faster growing oysters to replace the Olympia oyster? They didn't really have any success with the Eastern oyster. Partly that's because they were trying to take them out of the water, ship them very slowly across rail cars, you know, across the entire United States [00:20:00] and then get them into the water.

Okay. They had more success bringing oysters from Japan. Um, and so for a very long time, until like World War II, they were, bringing baby oysters over from Japan, planting them here. so the Pacific oyster is grown all over the world because it looks and tastes really different.

And that's what you'll see most of the time at an oyster bar. You know, if it's from the West Coast, no matter what it's called, it's probably a Pacific oyster, unless they call it a Kumamoto oyster or an Olympia oyster. And the Kumamoto oyster, legend has it, was a hitchhiker on the boat that was bringing Pacific oysters over to Puget Sound.

It took them a long time to figure out that it was a different species. But they do grow a lot slower and they're from, um, southern Japan. So they, you know, when, when an oyster is used to warmer water, it's not quite gonna grow as fast.

Kevin: [00:21:00] Also the salinity the algae microalgae is so different I mean you're putting it in a completely different environment

Yeah. I think our the microalgaehas a huge impact on the flavor of the oysters.

And we've always been very lucky in this area to have very high amounts. actually too much, which is one of the, you know, the stories of Puget Sound is there, often ends up being, too much phytoplankton in the water, which is why oyster farming is so crucial, to help eat that stuff so that more sunlight can get down into the water.

Kevin: So, as difficult as Olympias are to grow, are they still grown primarily in a traditional kind of wild setting on the bottom, or are they cultured like a lot of Pacific oysters are, where they're in baskets or racks and bags and that sort of thing?

Emily: They are traditionally just grown on the ground. Um, they have to be at the, like, basically the [00:22:00] lowest point on your farm that you can manage. They don't like to be out of the water very much.

 I compare myself to an Olympia Oyster a lot, you know, we both grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Both do not like to be out in the hot sun for long periods of time. Think of them very much as Northwesterners, they like to just be underwater as much as possible, which is difficult when you're an oyster, because the tide is constantly going out and you have to just hold on. So that's actually one of the, my plans for the next few years is I'm working on a kid's book about Olympia oysters called the bold little oyster. And there's a song in it that's reoccurring that is the tide ever coming back in?

Kevin: Oh, that's great. Do you know when that's due to publish?

Emily: Um, it'll be a year or two, definitely. We'll be watching for an illustrator. Because the Olympia Oyster is so beautiful. Like, the shells can be so many different colors on the inside. I've seen ones that are like sparkly [00:23:00] silver, I've seen dark deep purple, bright orange, blues, light pinks, like these crazy vibrant colors. And so finding an illustrator that can really highlight that, but that's why I make, jewelry out of the Olympia oyster shells, just like, you know, I don't, I don't paint them, I don't add any acrylic spray, because they're just so gorgeous right on their own.

Kevin: When I think about Olympias, the history that I understand going way back, thousands of years, indeed, is that the Native Americans relied very heavily on olympias as a food source, and that many of the middens and the rises in land that you see, especially in parts of, Willapa Bay and South Puget Sound, Are shell middens primarily consisting of Olympia shells. Is that right?

Emily: Yes, absolutely. shellfish have been a huge part of the history of humans. I know that there were early clam beds. Actually [00:24:00] like terraces on the beach. Um. It's amazing to think of the tiny Olympia oyster feeding too many people, but that just goes to show how much more abundant they were back in the day.

 But you know, if you, go way, way back. Um, there's a lot of research showing that humans, you know, we originated from Africa and worked our way along the coastlines eating the shellfish because it couldn't run away from us. It had all these Omega threes that help feed our brains. And, you know, a big part of why we have the brains that we do is the Omega threes that were in the shellfish.

Kevin: The more I learn about Shellfish, the more I understand the prominent role that they've played in our history. More than one would think and more than I had ever had any idea before.

Emily: Absolutely.

Kevin: I've heard a lot of people say that the highlight flavor, the most prominent flavor, [00:25:00] is mineral-y, kind of copper-y, sort of like sucking on a penny

Emily: Yes, that is something that I'm very excited to explore more, I think might part of that comes from age. So we're so used to Olympia oysters that are as old as possible because they're as large as possible. And so it's traditional to harvest the Olympia oyster when they are three to five years old. And at that point there may be, maximum two inches. like that's as big as they're going to grow, you know, you're thinking like half dollar size. And at that point, the shell has multiple layers because it stopped growing out at a certain point. And it's just, maturing and… I like to get really heady about it and just, you know, taste like the Northwest. The mountains, the trees, the rain, the water. and when really pressed to describe it in actual flavor terms, I say, you know, it's, it's a little sweeter than [00:26:00] people would expect from an oyster. Um, Sometimes it's described as having, like, a mushroomy flavor, but I don't think that's accurate.

Emily: You know, it is The lexicon that we use for describing oysters is so difficult. I actually, um, worked with this company that does flavor profiles, like a flavor profile app for, beer and cheese and wine companies. And so we put together, What are the terms that people can use for oysters, and there's an app that's free to use that people can, you know, select for each oyster, a hundred different descriptors and describe the shell and everything, but that was one of the most stressful things in my life, was making those decisions of, what words are you going to use them because, an oyster is not always going to be, peaty, stony, you know, peachy.

 there's so much more than that and there's so much that you can't capture in words at all. So I think [00:27:00] Olympia oysters are even more difficult because no word that you use actually describes it. it's a lot more similar to Like a single malt scotch, you know, so most other oysters are like a really good blend from Costco, you know, like, you know, and a lot of those are, the same as the high end brands.

They're just in a different, you know, Kirkland packaging,

So it'll be delicious and you can drink tons of it and it'll be really great. But if you get, one of those incredibly expensive single malt scotch and you like slowly sip on it and the flavor changes as you're eating it, you go through a whole bunch of different layers of flavor. Like that's an Olympia oyster to me. 

And so you can't. Eat it expecting, to eat, massive amounts and fill up on it. Like it is something that is, best savored. The best Olympia oysters that I've ever had were actually from Chelsea farms in South Puget sound. And they were less than a year and a half old. The only way I can describe it is it tasted like a [00:29:00] pink cloud.

Kevin: A pink cloud? 

Emily: Yeah, like I don't even know why, I don't even know what that means. But it was like, But you know it when you taste it. I know, yeah, it was like, this is amazing. It was, it was so delicate. You know, so Olympia oysters in general because they're smaller, they have more um, Of a tendency to dissolve rather than be something that you have to, chew and choke down,

So that's why I usually recommend them to people who are a little bit more squeamish or they know they're for your first oyster experience I think Olympia oysters are fantastic But because they're not as salty usually they don't quite prepare people for the other oysters that they're gonna eat later on, but those baby younger Olympia oysters, don't have as much, texture to them. Like it really did just kind of dissolve in your mouth a lot more. And the meat was like the size of a dime. And it was just, it was beautiful. Um, [00:30:00] so the difficult part of that is you have to build up the market and the demand for it in order to offer that.

So we want, and we are ready to, start harvesting two different ages of Olympia oysters, but it's hard enough to sell any Olympia oyster, because a big part of why people aren't as excited about growing them too is they have a shorter shelf life.

Kevin: And do they have the similar kind of filtration and water improving Benefits that any other oyster like a Pacific might have?

Emily: Absolutely it's just a lot smaller. But yeah, they're, they're not going to fill you up and they're not going to have as much of a water quality impact.

They will still have an impact. but that's not necessarily like the primary reason to put them back out onto the beach.

I forgot about one of my favorite facts about olympia oysters. Oh, yes um, so there You There's still research being done about [00:30 :00] climate change resiliency with oysters, but one of the initial bits of findings was that Olympia oysters might be a little bit more resilient, and that's because Olympia oysters actually brood their young. So the first couple weeks of the baby Olympia oyster's life, it's inside of its mother's shell. 

So that crucial development phase, when they're first, um, you know, most susceptible to the acidification in the ocean, um, that usually, you know, in a, in a Pacific oyster, Kumamoto oyster, or an Eastern oyster, that Whidbey happening out in the water because those oysters all broadcast spawn, so fertilization is happening out in the water.

So that's one of the, the time periods when they're, they're most susceptible, um, to that damage. So Olympia oysters are, you know, slower, smaller, growing a little bit more finicky, um, but they might have that slight advantage. So we're excited to see where that's going to go as far as scientific development.

Kevin: That's so interesting. So that's [00:31:10] really quite a dramatic difference than, than your other Pacific oysters or Eastern oyster.

Emily: Yes.

Kevin: And do they come out as larvae or do they come out more advanced than that?

Emily: They're still technically larvae, yeah. So the oyster swims around for a couple weeks of its life, trying to eat as much food as it can. And that's when the shell initially forms. So that period is a little bit shorter in Olympia oysters, but they'll still have that period of swimming around. And they have these like little hairs that help them actually swim, but mostly they're like moved by the current. Um, and they have an eye at that point that's like very weak, just like lets them tell where the light is.

And that helps them get up to the surface because that's where their food is a lot more abundant. So they're only eating microalgae, which is like little sea vegetables, lots of omega three, and it grows, um, from sunlight. So it's up near the surface. So they want to get up there. And [00:33:00] then they are looking for signals. You know, chemical signals in the water for, um, things that are basic, um, because the oyster shells are made of calcium carbonate, which is a very high pH.

Kevin: I think that that period when they're free swimmers with their, the eyed larvae. I think, didn't MFK Fisher, in her book, Consider the Oyster, call that the freewheeling bachelor days of oysterdom where you have basically two weeks to party wild and then you're settled down on a rock never to move again.

Emily: Exactly. It's their, their rumspringa, you know. 

Kevin: Yeah, that's right, exactly. 

Emily: But also like, they're, they're babies. 

Kevin: Yeah, so they haven't, they haven't learned how to have fun yet. 

Emily: They have no idea what they're doing. 

Kevin: They don't know how to party. 

Emily: Yeah, it's only later once they're stuck for life that they realize everything they should have done

In a, you know, for a farm, this all happens, you know, in swimming tanks instead with, you know, oyster shells. But you can, you know, [00:34:00] you can get like 20 oysters attached to, you know, one large oyster shell, but if you're intending to have oysters for the half shell market, that's by themselves, then you put them in there with, um, you know, oyster shells that are the size of a piece of sand. So only one oyster can attach to it.

Kevin: Yeah, and that's how you keep them single. So as they grow.

Emily: Yeah. And so theoretically, you know, all the oysters that you get at an oyster bar have a little tiny piece of another oyster shell still attached. So a lot of them will have broken off at that point, but, but maybe, so you can try and convince people to look for them.

Kevin: Tell me about Salinity Seafood and what you do, because it's more than just an oyster shop. There's quite a lot more going on there.

Emily: Yes, it is. That's why the official name is Salinity Seafood & More.

The “And More” part is more than the seafood part at this [00:35:00] point, because I'm kind of an all-or-nothing person.

So once I started adding other things to the store, I couldn't really stop and it's just kind of spiraled out of control since then. Um, there are just so many amazing products out there. And I wanted to have a selection of items that people would maybe purchase with oysters, or if they were a vegetarian, but they had somebody in their house who liked oysters, you know, maybe they get some vegan treats for themselves and oysters for their family member.

So once I started adding, Items. it is now like one to 300 items. I try not to keep track, um, too closely on that. I mean, of course I do have it all on my computer, very careful, very carefully tracked. Um, 

Kevin: It's that business school training that's put to good use. 

Emily: It is, it is crucial. [00:36:00] But at this point, the focus of the business is wholesale oysters to restaurants from the two farms that I work with, and gift boxes shipped anywhere in the country, ordered online.

Um, I work with a fish company called Whidbey Island Seafood Company, and they do a lot of fishing in Alaska and working with other fisher people. So, I can get frozen fish, smoked fish, whenever I need from them.

And then I do keep an inventory of non perishable food and non food items down in Langley on the south end of Whidbey Island.

Kevin: Yeah, because you have a lot of non-food related items on your website, which is a beautiful website. Um, and I wanted to mention the name of it because, It's not Salinity Seafood, it's eatsalinity.com, is that right?

Emily: Yes, and that is so as not to scare away the vegans. Because [00:37:00] I do have vegan customers, and it is really important to me that this be accessible. That you can purchase something for your entire household, and that they're not going to, feel triggered or upset, by, having that like seafood hammered in,

Kevin: you sell jewelry, you sell all kinds of things. it's really interesting what you have and it's primarily focused around what I call oyster culture, but not entirely.

Emily: Yeah. It's my Whidbey Island and the Pacific Northwest.

Kevin: Right. And that is one of the things that I really like about your website and what you do. Your whole focus appears to be keeping it local small businesses, and kind of really enhancing the grassroots businesses that are growing on Whidbey. Is that a priority of yours?

Emily: Absolutely. So I'm able to work with small businesses that don't have any other [00:38:00] outlet, for their sales or. Larger and they do their own sales, um, you know, anywhere in that. I also do website and marketing consulting. So there are a number of businesses that I've helped set up their website and their social media. And I can also provide another outlet for them to sell their products.

Kevin: The two oyster farms that you primarily work with, tell me who they are again and what your relationship is with them.

Emily: Yeah, I work with the Swinomish tribes farm in Similk Bay So that's Swinomish Shellfish Company And the Swinomish tribe does really amazing research, around clams and shellfish, as well as operating this farm that they started, um, within the last decade, they started really seriously farming oysters in the bay and they are starting to experiment with geoduck [00:39:00] as well.

 They've always had a pretty big, geoduck diving community in the tribe. Um, and they, so they grow Pacific oysters, Kumamoto oysters, and Olympia oysters. And they do bag-on-beach growth, so the oysters spend some time in bags that are kind of loosely suspended, so they get a little bit of tumbling from the tide, but not too much, and they do have direct contact with the ground a lot of the time, so they get a little bit more minerality, more depth of flavor because of that.

And it's a really nice contrast with the oysters from the other farm I work with, Skagit Shellfish. And they, the two bays, Similk Bay and Skagit Bay. Um, they're fairly close to each other, but they're far enough away and with different factors that you get, remarkable differences in the way that the [00:40:00] water and the oysters taste.

 So as far as me doing oyster education, it is like the perfect combination. And these two farms work really well with each other too. So we're really looking forward to what we can all do in the future together. So Skagit shellfish has a lot of fresh water coming into their bay from the Skagit River. So it's like fresh glacial water. It's not going through any major city. And it lowers the salinity of Skagit Bay. So they have the same water that comes through Deception Pass from the ocean that Similk Bay does, but it goes past Similk Bay, down into Skagit Bay, meets that cold glacial water, and their salinity is, like, it's like a Gulf Coast oyster, but it's cold water.

And so you don't have that like softness that a lot of people don't like about a low salinity Gulf oyster. So they are [00:41:00] super crisp and not very salty. And the first time I had it, I swear it was like, like a fresh green salad, you know, in the springtime, like when you're just like, this is so crunchy, full of water, but also green and vibrant. Their Pacific oysters are really remarkable.

Um, they also grow their oysters suspended. In bags. So Skagit Bay is a little bit too soft on the ground for the oysters to be directly on the ground. So they use suspended bags, which means that the oysters are constantly being tumbled by the tide. So like a bonsai tree, they end up with really beautiful shapes that are very carefully controlled. I describe it as like a gondola shape. Um, they're like very, very rounded.

Kevin: Nice deep cup kind of thing because of all the tumbling.

Emily: Yes. And so the meat will fill whatever shape the shell makes. And in some areas, you know, you don't have enough food in the water for the oyster to actually fill that cup.

[00:42:00] But Skagit Bay is so full of nutrients for the animals that they're just like, giant fat oysters filling up these big, big cups, but they have more of like a clean ocean flavor. I describe them as, because they don't have direct contact with the ground ever. So, usually I will say: start with the swinish oyster. Um, that's like a real, like the true expression of an oyster, you know, it'll taste very oyster-y, but if you don't like oyster-y, you know, maybe don't eat oysters, but also try a Skagit oyster because it'll taste like an oyster, but, much more light. So the cool thing is that they have, because they do only suspended bag, they're only able to do suspended bag. They're the only farm that I know that does suspended bag Kumamoto oysters. And right now they're growing suspended bag Olympia oysters. 

Kevin: Really? 

Emily: You were asking about growing methods for Olympia oysters. And it's going to be really interesting [00:43:00] to see how these oysters grow up. There's little Olympia oysters in suspended bags getting tumbled.

 Kevin: When did you start Selenity?

Emily:  It was, early 2021. I started it with a friend from high school Sam Mitchell. And he had a salmon company. So we decided to start this company focused on oysters, adding in his salmon and some other products and, um, we realized that our, ideas of how it would go were a little bit divergent.

Um, so that was one of those learning curve lessons about how do you, start a business with somebody else, manage all of those decisions, and then separate a business,

Kevin: What would you say has been your biggest single challenge or struggle in your business?

Emily: The, you know, the interpersonal, how do [00:44:00] I work with other people while also feeling very strongly that this is my baby. I want to do it how I want to do it. The emotional weight of being responsible for a business is something that I knew intellectually, but didn't really register just how intense it felt. But as long as you don't focus on what could go wrong with it, you just know that throughout your day, five things are going to be rearranged.

Kevin: Are you still Gooey Duck Gal?

Emily: Yes, I am. Yep, and I'm actually, I'm working I'm still deciding on a name for it, but a book about geoducks.

Kevin: Really?

Emily: Yeah. So there, there are like only two books about them, period. And neither of them are what we would want them to be. Um, so it'll be, you know, pretty, pretty big, like coffee table textbook kind of a book that has, you know, history, current farming practices, interviews, scientific research, [00:45:00] and hopefully a lot of, um, you know, native myths, songs, poems, artwork. But again, I'm not a geoduck farmer

Kevin: But you're a remarkable Ambassador.

Emily: Yes, that is what I've established that my, my lot in life is I'm, I'm not a marine biologist. I am not a farmer. I am kind of the, the go-between, I'm a, a lot of silly metaphors, but like a, a prism, you know, like take the sunlight and turn it into a rainbow, between different groups and, um, you know, connecting different groups. So that's a lot of what, um, I do with my business, um, and the website, EatSalinity, is connect people who are interested in high quality local products with the businesses that are doing it. Being a connector is a big priority for me.

Kevin: Where do you want to be in five years?

Emily: I have been thinking about this a [00:46:00] lot in the last 24 hours, especially because I just spent the weekend down in Olympia. And, you know, my heart is pretty split between shellfish, small businesses and the Evergreen State College. So that's always been such a big part of my heart and, you know, why I am the person that I am. And I've been planning on making my way back there to, you know, either work in marketing or Alumni Foundation, um, or be a faculty member. And then teach in the winter and Olympia, you know, when it's cold and dark, I have a lot of good friends down there that I want to be, be huddled up eating soup with. So I've got really amazing friends up here as well, but it's a little bit more isolating up here.

Kevin: I can't wait to see how it unfolds.

Emily: Thank you. I'm excited. It's a lot of different things, but like I said, it really is just in those three categories, [00:47:00] small businesses, shellfish and Evergreen.

Kevin: Well, Emily Wilder, I can't thank you enough for telling me a bit about your story and about Salinity Seafoods and Olympias. Sso thank you so much.

Emily: This is so great. Thank you

Kevin: Since sitting down with Emily, she's expanded her Salinity Seafood & More operation into both an online presence at eatsalinity.com and to a retail store in Langley on Whidbey Island, which, if you're lucky enough to get to Whidbey, you should absolutely check out. 

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

Bubbles.