Episode 13: Exploring the Bounty of the Bay with Goose Point Oysters' Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy

Show Notes:

Exploring the Bounty of the Bay with Goose Point Oysters' Kathleen Nisbet

In this episode of OYSTER-ology, Kevin talks to Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy, the Chief Operating Officer and family member owner of Goose Point Oyster Company, about the rich history and innovative practices of their oyster farming business. Kathleen discusses the origins of Goose Point Oyster Co., founded by her parents in the 1970s, and the challenges and solutions they've developed over the years, particularly focusing on sustainable practices and combating climate change. They explore the unique environment of Willapa Bay, the methods of oyster cultivation and harvesting, and the importance of community and ecosystem stewardship. Kathleen also explains the innovative hyperbaric high-pressure processing technology that allows Goose Point to offer 'shuckless oysters' and the future expansions and product lines the company is exploring. The conversation highlights the family-oriented, community-focused approach that drives Goose Point Oyster and its commitment to quality and sustainability.

00:00 Introduction to Oyster Habitat Engineering

00:22 Meet Kathleen: COO of Goose Point Oyster

01:06 History of Goose Point Oyster

03:43 Growing Up in Bay Center

07:28 Kathleen's Journey in Aquaculture

09:41 Farming Practices at Goose Point Oyster

10:46 Challenges and Innovations in Oyster Farming

18:09 Harvesting Techniques and Environmental Impact

20:04 The Shuckless Oyster Innovation

25:46 Cold Juice Pasteurization and Safe Raw Oysters

26:15 Challenges of Mail Order Shipping for Oysters

27:11 Differences Between East and West Coast Oysters

29:13 Diploids vs. Triploids: Year-Round Harvesting

29:57 Efficient Oyster Shucking Techniques

32:04 Unique Practices in Willapa Bay Oyster Farming

38:44 Burrowing Shrimp: The Biggest Challenge

43:56 Innovations and Future Plans at Goose Point Oyster Farm

48:52 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Links:
Goose Point Oyster Co. (https://goosepoint.com/)

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Transcript

Trnascript:
Exploring the Bounty of the Bay with Goose Point Oysters' Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy

[00:00:00] 

 Bubbles.

Oysters are their own habitat engineers and they live in amongst eelgrasses and a whole other host of critters. if you're out here and you take a bed that doesn't have anything on it like shrimp ground, and you put oysters there, it'll be teeming with life within the next couple of years.

Bubbles.

Kevin: 

Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about oysters, aquaculture, and everything from spat to shuck. I'm your host, Kevin Cox. This week, I sit down with Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy, Chief Operating Officer of Goose Point Oyster Company in Willapa Bay in the southwest corner of Washington State. Kathleen operates the family farm after taking it over from her father, Dave Nisbet, who started it as a tiny five acre startup and built it into a 2000 acre farm with a state of the art processing plant.

Sitting at the mouth of the Cedar River, Goose Point overlooks wide mud flats reaching far into the shallow [00:01:00] bay where it grows a select variety of oysters and distributes them all across the nation. With its own hatchery in Hawaii, the farm engages in extensive research aimed at both improving the resilience of oysters and protecting the bay's natural environment.

They also employ unique technologies to reduce oyster bacteria, while at the same time producing high quality shellfish in Including the innovative shuckless oyster. Kathleen's dedication to aquaculture goes beyond the business. It's part of her family's legacy and the community ethos. As she looks to the future, ensuring sustainable practices and enhancing oyster meat quality inside the shell remain her highest priority.

Whether you're an oyster enthusiast or a curious foodie, Goose Point Oysters offers an inspiring blend of sustainability, innovation, and passion. So toss that shucking knife back in the drawer and slide into your muck boots as we discuss growing oysters in sticky mud, the pressure of an [00:02:00] elephant standing on a dime, the evils of burrowing shrimp, when does a shucked oyster die, perfect shucking without any shucking, the life and challenges of an oyster farmer in Willapa Bay, and so much more with my guest and a mama in boots in the mud raising kids, Kathleen Nisbet-Moncy. 

 Bubbles.

Kevin: Kathleen, thank you for being on OYSTER-ology today. I am so excited to have you here. There's so many questions I want to ask. I know it's been a long time going, but here we are. So, how are you 

Kathleen: I'm doing absolutely fabulous. Thank you for having me on here. I'm glad we were able to pull it together and, record today.

Kevin: Now, you are the Chief Operating Officer of Goose Point Oyster, is that right? Correct. Is Goose Point Oyster the same organization as Nisbet Oyster Company? 

Kathleen: It is, yes. 

so Nisbet [00:03:00] Oyster Company is our processing plant, and Goose Point Oyster is our brand, and it is also our farm.

Okay. 

Kevin: So tell me a little bit about Goose Point Oyster and your history of your company. 

Kathleen: Yeah. So Goose Point Oyster was originally, started by my father and my mother, um, back in the seventies. My dad was. down here studying marine biology, with Dick Wilson at base in our mariculture, trying to come up with a way to where you could create a hatchery setting for oysters.

Um, they're having issues with it. Natural oysters, natural reproducing in the environment. And so they're wondering if they could set oysters on shell utilizing tanks and then be able to have then plant those oysters out to have a consistent crop cycle rotation. Um, my mom is a fisherman's daughter and had her own beauty salon down here in Bay Center at the old Bay Center school.

He met my mom, fell in love, met all of my uncles who are crab fishermen and were gill netters at the [00:04:00] time. And basically the rest is history. 

Kevin: And how long ago was that? 

Kathleen: you know, we're actually having a discussion on how long ago that was. my parents met in 1976 and my dad planted his first set of long lines out here in 1977 as one of the Only startups here in Willapa Bay.

It's really hard to get access to tidelands because they're passed down from generation to generation. He was fortunate enough to be able to get a little five acre parcel. And of course, the five acres he originally got were of tidelands that weren't really of value. You couldn't really harvest much from them, 

And so he, did some research to find, an alternate method of farming, which is called long lining, which is actually a French method to take some of the mediocre tidelands and turn it into fattening grounds where you could actually grow and harvest oysters. So he started doing long lines in 1977 here in Willapa.

he's one of the original people looking [00:05:00] at how to farm in Willapa using other methods than just relying on 100 percent natural sets.

So, natural sets, give you an sort of an inconsistent crop cycle rotation. So for business management, you never know what mother nature is going to get you. So he was one of the pioneers at looking at ways to evolve into more of a farming mechanism and to be able to utilize the resources around us, to be able to do that.

So that our business could. Consistently have enough to, harvest on a year round cycle. 

Kevin: Yeah. Which is always a challenge for oyster farmers, 

Kathleen: you know, mother nature will decide what she's going to do.

And we're basically on the receiving end of it all the time. 

Kevin: Right. It's true. 

Kathleen: Tell me a little bit about where you are on Willapa, and also describe Willapa Bay, Yeah, so, I'm from a little town called Bay Center. Um, and it's called Bay Center because it's right smack dab in the middle of Willapa Bay.

 and we call it the island. There's one bridge [00:06:00] in, and then there's a little stretch of land that keeps it connected to the mainland, but it's a little small fishing village. Actually used to be one of the larger fishing villages here in Willapa. Used to have lots of canneries. into the bay.

Um, but when I was a kid, we lived across the street from the park down there. and there's a little grocery store that was down there and it was just a chock full of fishermen and crab fishermen. and everybody in the area worked for a cannery or was involved in, you know, being a steward of the estuary in some way or another.

Kevin: So small town, start for you. what was life like for you as a kid in a little place like that? 

Kathleen: growing up in Bay Center was a magical place where you always dreamed your kids could live. It's sort of that picturesque, place where we were on a little tiny island and we would just run around and play.

You could literally whistle from one side of the town to the other side of the town. So when it was dinner time, all the kids knew that it was dinner time. Uh, we lived a hop, skip and a jump away from the water. So [00:07:00] spent our days building rafts out of whatever materials we could find and floating in the sloughs and playing out in the bay and swimming in the estuary, which was right there, bridge jumping and, and all the joys that came along with it.

Kevin: That sounds idyllic. And is that how you became interested in the water and oysters 

Kathleen: so as a, an infant, my dad used to take me out on the oyster dredge. and I used to have a little Jesus basket that I would sleep in. And the joke is to this day, if you put me in a car, I'll fall asleep.

And that's because as a little girl, the hum of a diesel engine underneath of me would lull me to sleep. And so my dad would take me everywhere with him, whether on the oyster dredge or when I got a little bit older, I would hold lanterns out. on nighttime tides, well guys picked oysters and I think it's just, you know, being involved in a community that loves what they do and cherishes, you know, their commitment to the [00:08:00] ecosystem itself and to each other, um, was something that as a young girl, I sort of fell in love with, you know, whether it was doing that with my dad or it was on a crab boat with my grandfather and my uncles, just the hard work and perseverance that, that That those guys put through and then the women that were working in the canneries and it's just a labor of love working on the water and being able to process those foods and the sense of community that it created around us. Is what really made me fall in love with what I currently do. And I never saw myself doing anything else but continuing in that legacy. And then also wanting to provide good working jobs for our community people as well to state that, you know, not everybody has to go off and get a fancy degree and go to college, but there's good honest work that can be done in these communities and can Be done in a way that you get to feed people and when you're working with food and [00:09:00] feeding people It's just sort of it's beautiful.

I don't know another way to describe it and what you get from that it's fulfilling 

So you kind of grew up knowing that you were going to continue the family business Yeah, since I was a little girl, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. It was just a matter of when and how and what to study and how to get myself to this position that I'm currently in right now. 

Kevin: So how did you get to this position? 

Kathleen: so, I studied aquaculture actually in high school and we raised tilapia, in our class and then I went off to UH Hilo and studied marine biology and Spanish, 

And actually it was there where we got our initial start with our hatchery over in Hawaii. Interesting connection of going to school there and working with some of the professors and sort of, uh, being involved in the first parts of OA before OA had even become a thing. and then after that I did a little bit of research on international studies at Portland [00:10:00] State.

 and there was a moment in Portland State University that I knew I was coming back home when I was in a class of about 45 people. And the professor asked if anybody in the class knew where their food came from, knew somebody who produced a food or had a story. story behind it. And I was the only one to raise my hand out of all of those kids. There are comments where the food comes from the grocery store. Duh. so I was like, all right, I've experienced the city. I've done my travels. It's time to come back home and start working in the family business and start educating people on where their food comes from, what it means to produce a food and sort of make those connections.

And uh, 17 years ago I moved back home. And I started boots on the ground, working on the farm, uh, working in our processing plant from packing oysters to doing quality control, to doing HR, to doing AP, up until the point of now running, the entirety of our organization. 

Kevin: Is your father still actively [00:11:00] involvedor is it pretty much you running the whole show?

Kathleen: he's my special projects guy. Farmers never retire. once it's in your blood, it's always in your blood. And so he likes to take on special projects for me, which is quite fun. Although, He told me this year that he's no longer doing boats anymore. And I need to put my big girl pants on and take over the management of our boat mechanic fleet.

Kevin: Well, that might be a problem for you. if they're diesel engines, because they're going to have to splash water on you to wake you up every time you go out. 

Kathleen: All right. No, right. Actually, my 17 year old wants to become a diesel mechanic.

So I think I'm going to have a built in person, in the next few years. 

Kevin: Always good to have one of those. So tell me a little bit about, the farm and how much bottom you have and how many people, 

Kathleen: Yeah, so, we currently have about 2, 000 acres. all here in Willapa Bay, uh, we grow oysters in a traditional way in which they're all on bottom.

So, that's our cultivation practice. We [00:12:00] like to work in tandem with Mother Nature, and so, for us here in Willapa, that's the best avenue for farming. And we have about a hundred employees on average, depending on our time of year. And that's between our farm, our processing plant, and our hatchery over in Hawaii.

Kevin: So let me jump over to Hawaii very quickly. So you have a hatchery over there, and is it all Pacifics that you're dealing with, or are you also dealing with other varieties of oysters in the hatchery? 

Kathleen: Yeah, so our hatchery does Pacific Oysters, does Kumamotos and then also has a Virginica program. 

We're always looking at genetic diversity within our hatchery. even within the Pacifics, looking at the Midori's and the Miyagi genetics, so that we can have a constant diversity. And also climate change is. Continuing to be an issue for us. We've had massive mortalities for like the last five years, so we're looking at different genetic varieties [00:13:00] and different inheritance traits of those varieties to be able to combat climate change.

Kevin: Is the climate change problem mostly water temperature or salinity that's creating these die offs? 

Kathleen: So the diocese, the million dollar question right now, there's a, lot of things that are happening here. We've got increase in water temperature. That's been happening.

We've had algal blooms, um, both harmful and non harmful that have been, blooming in our estuaries, which has caused some issues. We've had low dissolved oxygen. I've had a variety of different things that have, happened, but we actually don't have any exact, um, bullet yet of what it is specifically.

But we're, we're sort of honing in on what it may or may not be with regards to looking at genetics of oysters and be able to diversify. 

Kevin: if your primary, way of growing is on the bottom, that's not in cages or anything, you're distributing seed [00:14:00] or spat right on the bottom, 

Kathleen: I tell people to think of potatoes, we create a seed in Hawaii and then we bring it here. We take that and we plant it on a mother shell and we take that mother shell and we put it into a nursery, a secure location for about six months. And then we take that mother shell with all its baby oysters and we plant it in the mud.

And we leave it in the mud and we cultivate it while it's in the mud. And then we harvest it directly from the mud when it's ready to come in. 

Kevin: So you have upwellers or something that you're putting your little spat on shell in to grow? 

Kathleen: Nope. So we take oyster larvae, um, and we have these 5, 000 gallon tanks that are filled with oyster shell and oysters will swim around in those tanks, find a shell, and then they'll set on that shell and that's where they stay.

So different than seed, we do larvae for [00:15:00] kulch and or a mother shell, um, versus one individual oyster. One mother shell will hold Hold about 40 individual oysters on it. 

Kevin: So does that mean to say that the majority of your cultivated oysters are not singles for the half shell market? But rather clumped together, 

Kathleen: Yeah. So we harvest oysters in clusters. So that mother shell, we'll harrow those oysters and break the oysters up. and so when we bring them in for processing, we'll have about five to eight oysters on each one of those. mother shells that we will come in and shuck to be processed.

So where are your 8, 10 ounce, 16 ounce jar or your fried oyster plate that you're seeing in restaurants? That's coming from us because we've done all the work in pre shucking it and providing you a little beautiful shell less oyster. And we recycle all of our shells to put them back out. So, it's a way [00:16:00] to also continue to enhance Mother Nature.

Kevin: so when you put your, your shell out onto the flats, how big roughly are the oysters on them? 

Kathleen: when they go from the tanks to the nursery They're like the size of a pencil dot or a pen dot and then when we plant all the shells in the mud. They're gonna be about the size of a quarter. 

Kevin: So, one of the things that I hear people talking about when putting oysters in the water is predators and that the larger that they are when they put them in, the higher the likelihood or survival will be of those oysters.

Is that something that you've dealt with? 

Kathleen: Yeah. So, Single oysters are different than our kulch oysters. We're putting them out in larger quantities than the kulch ones. And so our predators are minimal when we're going to put those directly on bottom. 

Actually, we're more concerned on weight. You want enough weight to hold those shells down so the oysters will [00:17:00] stay. And that's one of the reasons why Willapa is so amazing. For, um, bottom culture is because we have this sticky mud that has a really high organic layer on top of it. And so when you put those shells down on the mud, they stick.

So it's not sandy. It's not Rocky. You want a certain substrate for the oyster shells to be able to stay there and not move around. 

Kevin: And because they're in clusters and not singles, you don't have to worry about them burying in the mud and dying or anything like that, 

Kathleen: Yep. Think of like a four, four to five inch shell filled with baby oysters that all grow off of that shell. 

Kevin: once you put the oysters on the bottom, how long before you're ready to harvest?

Kathleen: It's about two to three years. depending on the size of oyster. So also we grow our oysters a little bit bigger here, our oysters are going to be about four to five inches in length compared to your [00:18:00] average half shell market is going to be about an inch and a half to two and a half inches.

And because you're not serving them as singles, you don't have that reaction that some people have about oysters that are too big, 

 no, actually, some of our customers, the bigger, the better. we currently have oysters right now that we are harvesting that are about, nine inches and up.

Kevin: No kidding. 

Yeah. 

Kathleen: on your Instagram, I saw a picture of what I can only describe as an enormous oyster. I mean, it was huge. I like a big oyster, but that one requires a knife and a fork, Yeah, they, they are like an oyster steak, like legit.

They take an oyster and they steam it open. They take the top of it off. They put hot sauce on top of it and then they cut it. just like you would a steak and eat it bite by bite. 

Kevin: Yeah, 

it sounds really good. 

You know, with tumbled oysters in an aquaculture environment for singles, by tumbling them, [00:19:00] they're getting. rounder and fatter and deeper cups How would you describe the oysters that you're growing?

Kathleen: so we harrow them. So we take them and we, we basically rake them and we break off off the lips of them and we tumble them around and spread them out so they have more access to food. And we do that a couple of times in the life cycle of an oyster. so that's our mechanism of like tumbling like the others do, but you never see the shell of what we're doing because we recycle all that.

So all you're going to see is the meat. So we're growing for meat quality and yield of those oysters specifically. So next time you pick up a jar of oysters, see how fat that oyster is because our cultivation practices create a nice. Plump round oyster without having to focus so much on the shell, but the in what's inside of it.

Kevin: I never really thought about [00:20:00] it quite like that before, 

Kathleen: We're like the steak version, right? Like you want that beautiful steak that's sitting in front of you. and you want the quality of that meat and that's what we're going for. 

Kevin: how do you harvest them if they're on the bottom?

Kathleen: we have two ways. Um, so we hand harvest. We go out at low tide and we individually pick up all the clusters of oysters and put them into what we call picking tubs. and then at high tide, we go and we pick up those picking tubs. I always tell people it's like similar to Deadliest Catch, right? You know how they're picking up a crab pot and putting it on a boat and taking it out?

So we do the same thing with picking tubs. We pick them up, dump the oysters on the bow of the boat, put the tub back in the water. or at high tide, we, have a mechanical harvest where we lightly drag, bags along the bottom and those bags scoop up the oysters, put them all about the boat, and then we bring them in for processing.

Kevin: So kind of a, form of dredging, but. maybe a little bit more [00:21:00] sophisticated 

Kathleen: People think of dredging and they think of like physically removing like sediments and everything along with it. Um, oysters are a delicate animal even though they have a hard shell and you want to make sure that when you're mechanically harvesting, that you're doing it with the lightest touch possible because you don't want to um, Hurt the oysters and you also want to retain those sediments there Because that is a key part of our farming practices So it's a very targeted approach for harvesting 

Oysters live in amongst eelgrasses and a whole other host of critters. if you're out here and you take a bed that doesn't have anything on it like shrimp ground, and you put oysters there, it'll be teeming with life within the next couple of years.

Kevin: So they're creating natural habitat while they're growing themselves. 

Kathleen: Absolutely. Yeah. they are their own habitat engineers and they create a lot of, nursery grounds for like Dungeness crab, for an example. [00:22:00] Um, they all hide within our oyster grounds. So yeah, they create a lot of habitat for other species. 

Kevin: I saw something on your website that I'm very curious about, 

And that is your Shuckless oyster, which I think are, you call your blue seals. Tell me a little bit about the shuckless oyster. 

Kathleen: So the blue seal is a, really creative way that we have now pre shucked oysters in their shell. And I'll give you a little history on it. so. There's a bacteria, Vibrio, that can make people sick, right, when you eat oysters, especially in summer months.

And, my dad was working with Oregon State University back in the late 1990s, trying to figure out a way to combat that so that people would want to eat oysters all summer long without having any risks associated with it. And this was also after the development of the triploid oysters, so that you could eat oysters all year round.

Right. and so they were messing around with high pressure as it was coming out for guacamole, of like, what [00:23:00] would high pressure do with oysters? Like, could you kill bacteria and, um, other things with it? So they're, you know, Uh, as they were troubleshooting it, they found out, yes, it does kill bacteria, Vibrio, it explodes the cell structure of anything, but it also shucks the oyster in its shell.

So the pressure unravels the protein matrix of the abductor muscle, therefore shucking it in its shell. So it was a really cool added benefit that this HP process could shuck oysters. So what we do is we take an. A live oyster, sealed in that last, gulp of seawater, that saltwater that's here.

We seal it and then we pressurize it with a hundred percent cold water pressure and that cold water pressure shucks the oyster inside its shell. so all you have to do is take off the band, the oyster pops open and you look like you're the best oyster shucker in the world because there's no shell particles and there's no [00:24:00] entry points when you open this oyster.

And 

Kevin: How much pressure are we talking about to do that? 

Kathleen: like 40, 000 pounds per square inch, AKA like, I think it's what 10 elephants standing on a dime, but you can put a tomato in there and it'll come out just fine. Like it's equal pressure all the way around the animal, but it's a lot of pressure.

Yeah. 

Kevin: So the pressure. You were saying it unravels the structure of the adductor muscles on both sides, both top and bottom. 

Kathleen: So 

Kevin: you just have a beautiful, free floating oyster inside its shell. And does the, does the liquor when you seal that oyster at the beginning, before you start the process, does that liquor stay in there?

Or is it forced out by the water? 

Kathleen: Nope. There's no intrusion of water inside of it. Cause we, we've kept it sealed. So it retains its liquor on the inside. How 

Kevin: do 

Kathleen: you 

Kevin: seal 

Kathleen: it? Uh, we literally just put a rubber band around it. 

Kevin: Oh, that's [00:25:00] really good, I was gonna ask you about that. I saw the blue rubber bands.

So you put those around the oyster before you put it in the What is that machine called, anyway? 

Kathleen: It's a high pressure machine. 

Kevin: Ah, okay. So you rubber band up the oysters before you put it in the high pressure machine? Correct. And that's enough to keep it tight and closed and everything?

Mm hmm. Now, does it kill the oyster in the process? 

Kathleen: When does an oyster die? 

Kevin: I've heard people say, that the oyster dies when you sever the adductor muscle from the shell.

Kathleen: But I also understand that the adductor is just a muscle. It's not an organ. An organ. So that shouldn't necessarily kill it. What's your view on all of this? I think an oyster is what an oyster is. it's a amazing living animal that at some point ceases to exist, but I don't have an exact [00:26:00] answer on when it does. In theory, you would want to say, yes, when the oyster is removed from its shell, It's no longer respiring and it would be a dead animal. 

I tend to think that the oyster dies when I chew it up and talk about how tasty it is. But I think that that issue is often kind of skirted over because you don't want to scare people away. Yeah, I mean, I'll eat a variety of different things, but I think plant life is also living. So what point does a plant die as well? 

Excellent question. so, once you've put an oyster through the high pressure machine and it's done and it's shucked, how long is your shelf life Um, our shelf life is about 17 days. After we've shucked it. Yeah. So we get a little bit longer shelf life, out of the HP process than as a regular oyster. and we, just put it in a box with its cup down and [00:27:00] ship it straight that way. 

Kevin: how do you sell your oysters and how do you distribute them?

Kathleen: Um, we sell 'em a variety of different ways. Um, we sell our oysters online, we sell them to grocery stores, all across the us. and then we also sell them to wholesalers for restaurants, our product, being a pre shocked oyster, and gone through that process creates a value added, safer to eat product for people that, may have any known health concerns.

Which allows us to access to different markets due to the safety, concerns of certain grocery stores and or restaurants to know that that oyster has gone through that process prior to, giving it to their customers. 

Kevin: Yeah, I guess it's basically almost pasteurized by the time you're done with it, right?

Kathleen: Yeah. It's like a, you know how you do cold juices, cold juice pasteurization. It's kind of the similar processes that, you know, you're getting the most raw format of that, but you're getting the [00:28:00] safest raw format of that. 

Kevin: And in terms of your other oysters, the ones that you just, shuck and put in jars do you also distribute?

 through like mail mail order service 

Kathleen: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, we ship all over the u. s 

Kevin: I've heard small farms talk about how the Direct shipping to consumer is the hardest part of running an oyster farm because of the hands on Requirement and the timing associated with it.

What kind of experience are you guys having with mail order shipping? 

Kathleen: Well, considering most farms are in rural areas, our freight costs are significantly higher, than what people are used to, especially when Amazon came out with it's like two day free shipping, um, two day free shipping for oysters to Florida is like.

Kevin: 150 to 250. So it's super expensive for us to be able to ship [00:29:00] perishable products, all across the U S. So that's one of our biggest challenges that we run into is not the ability to get them and put the orders together but it's the cost and the freight to get them to places. Yeah, I see a lot of, jarred oysters?

All from the east coast, nothing from the west coast. 

Kathleen: we do ship over into the East coast, for oysters. it's not so much the freight on that side is that the pallet is different for East coast oysters for West coast oysters. And I didn't actually understand that until I was in New York 

And, they brought out some, I ordered a plate of oysters, right? Thinking, okay, cool. I'm going to get this beautiful plate of oysters. And they brought them out to me and I was like, um, these are spawny. Can you give me a different? You know, plate of oysters. And so she was like, what? So she was like, okay.

So she took them back and the waitress brought another plate of oysters out. And I was like, These aren't any better. And it, and finally put [00:30:00] two and two together that that's what their oysters look like. They look like our version, but well, we would say a spawned oyster that we wouldn't harvest. That's what an East coast oyster looked like.

And it's just completely different flavor profile that they have over there than we have over here. Here. You want that white. Meat body that's like thick and plump, you know, and you have a bite into it and over there. It's more delicate and thin. And so I learned, uh, the hard way the difference between oysters because I'm a West Coast girl.

I'm not an East Coast girl. So, uh, when you look at the jarred oysters, it's just because of people's preferences of oysters and what they do with them over there is just a little bit different than what we do here. 

Kevin: And by spawning, you're talking about gametes, creaminess inside the oyster. Is that right?

Kathleen: Yeah. So after the oysters spawn out, they're like totally translucent and transparent, you know, like they've been full and then they released [00:31:00] everything. And you're like, okay. We like 

Kevin: to call they're just spent. 

Kathleen: Yeah, there you go. And we're like, okay, you've got to wait for them to, you know, firm up and get their meat quality back.

Yeah, it's an issue that you see here a lot. And it also raises the debate about. Diploids versus triploids, and with triploids that won't reproduce, you don't have as much of that issue. Are you doing all diploids or triploids or, any variety of that? 

Yeah, we do, um, triploids all summer long.

And then we do diploids the rest of the year. I see. Yeah. So that's our way to continue to harvest year round because you can imagine shucking oysters. Like you've shucked a diploid at home in the summertime and it all just kind of goes everywhere. Yeah. Imagine shucking thousands of gallons of that type of product.

So we make sure that we have a nice firm oysters for us to shuck and process in the summertime. 

Kevin: So I've seen videos of your [00:32:00] process. Processing, inside your processing plant and some of your crew, going at the oysters and, here, because we're primarily dealing with singles, you go in with the hinge, you find that little spot, you pop it open, but your guys are just kind of stabbing them on the bill.

Tell me a little bit about how you do that. 

Kathleen: Yeah, you know, so that's crazy. Uh, years ago we compete in the oyster competition here, the West coast oyster competition. And, our guy won for the first time. And so he got sent to the East coast to shuck oysters. Right. And he gets to the East coast and they like had little tiny knives.

And everybody was shucking them backwards. And he was like, what in the world is going on with this? So imagine shucking an oyster that's like six inches big from the hinge. 

with like a two inch blade, right?

So, oysters always have their abductor muscle in the exact same spot. So our guys take a knife that's about five inches big, [00:33:00] and they go for that abductor muscle right at the top of the oyster, and they enter it right at the spot, and then they cleave the bottom part of it, and then they pull the top part off and then they cleave the top part of the oyster abductor and then it goes into a colander.

So, I mean, we can shuck 24 oysters in a minute and six seconds. And I'm not talking baby oysters. I'm talking big, decent sized oysters. So that's the best way to shuck an oyster is to cut the abductor muscle off of it. So we don't go through the most delicate part of the oyster to get to the abductor muscle.

We just. Go right to this part we need to go to 

Kevin: now if I wanted to serve that in a that fancy restaurant where you had Those terrible oysters you wouldn't do that because you want the shell to look pretty but since you're not seeing your shell Doesn't make any difference right 

Kathleen: doesn't matter. No 

 so that must have been quite a surprise when he got to the East Coast and it's like, no, no, no, no, you're, you're doing it all [00:34:00] wrong, It's funny the things you learn from, just traveling outside of your own little bubble. Like. I remember when I first, got on the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association board, back in 2012. And, everybody was talking about harvesting on beaches and using four wheelers and all this stuff.

And I was looking around the room, like, What in the world? Like, how do you guys do that? Because here it's all mud and you have to have a boat to get to it and there's no beaches and there's no rocks. So every area has their own unique practices and things that they deal with. So here in Willapa, we're just, that's why I say I'm just a mama in boots.

In the mud raising kids . 

Kevin: Uh, that's great. That's a, that's the perfect moniker. I think. So. So you go, you, you walk out or you, you walk out at low tide, which probably, at least in the winter, is [00:35:00] at nighttime, right? 

Kathleen: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm . 

Kevin: So you're walking around with a headlamp on, something like that, scooping up the oysters, putting them then in the baskets.

And then you come back during high tide to pick up those baskets. 

Kathleen: yep, that is correct. Our bay is super shallow. So it's about eight to nine feet deep. So at low tide, most of the bay is exposed and you can see all of your tide flats. And then at high tide, all of our boats are really, shallow draft boats so that they can skim over the tops of all the tide flats.

 they only draw a couple of feet of water cause we're only working in like six to eight feet of water. 

But that's a pretty big tidal shift each day. I mean, from. exposed mud to six or eight feet of water. Yeah, it's, it's a pretty wild estuary, which is the other reason why, you know, doing other types of systems here, is not working in tandem with mother nature, off bottom culture, flip bags and such, [00:36:00] they can go in specific protected areas.

But we move a lot of water and it's pretty fast moving here in our estuary. 

Kevin: So the other oyster farms that are in Willapa are doing a similar style of farming, Because of that. 

Kathleen: Yeah. About 95 percent of the production here is all going to be on bottom. 

Kevin: How large is your operation compared to the other farms in Willapa?

Kathleen: We're one of the biggest, here in our area. Yeah, there's there's about 25 farms here in Willapa, and we're probably the third largest in size. 

Kevin: And do you get along with all the other farmers? Is it one of these things where everybody's kind of peacefully coexisting or are there, you know, struggles over water, bottom, anything like that?

Kathleen: We're farmers. There's always something to complain about. 

Yeah, No, actually, we, we get along pretty well. We, we've all have very similar battles. [00:37:00] And so we fight really hard for water quality, for ecosystem services, because the health of our estuary is the health of our businesses. And if you're protecting the estuary, you're protecting your businesses, you're protecting your community.

And then you're doing that for generations to come. So people that live here and work here, and thrive here are all pretty interwoven together. so we do work really well together. There are issues that, you know, do separate industry, but we try to work together the best we possibly can through those issues.

Do you, produce anything other than oysters such as clams No. Um, I'm not a clam farmer, although we do have clam ground clams are different animal from a growing standpoint and from a hatchery standpoint. And, uh, that's on our future horizon to, to learn a little bit more about clam farming, but as of right now, no, 

Kevin: What other kind of tech innovations, are you [00:38:00] using in addition to this high pressure system? that you're finding are helping you in what you're doing there? 

Kathleen: Yeah, actually, um, a few years ago, we used to have the best CrossFit program with our seed bags. so when you, are putting out oyster shells.

Um, we used to have these 45 pound bags that we used to stack into tanks, stack onto the estuary, break in the estuary, and then plant the oysters out of. And we mechanized that entire operation to, these mods. So, uh, We are now using a crane to stack oyster shells to unstack oyster shells to then plant oyster shells.

 so that was a huge change over for our company. And then we also have a bunch of vision grater systems. So. So we are not optically eyeing and counting oysters and sizing oysters. We have equipment that does all of that for us now. So we've changed in that, [00:39:00] and we're also looking at a way to harvest oysters in an even lighter touch than we're doing right now.

 and as doing an analysis of the carbon footprint of the sediment in our estuary and analyzing what the carbon is and being able to see how the carbon changes with our farming practices and coming up with a lighter touch for moving oysters around so that we can move smaller oysters around versus just harvesting the bigger ones, 

uh, what's a good way to describe it? We're trying to figure out what our carbon absorption footprint is with our farming practices.

Since we're Taking shells out and then also, analyzing the carbon sequestration in the sediment itself. 

So we're currently working on a design for that. because we've been utilizing the same mechanism for harvest since, you know, uh, Since they started doing it, there hasn't been an evolution yet.

Kevin: do you have, scientists and really smart people working with you on some of these issues?[00:40:00] 

Kathleen: Yeah. I'm the dumbest one in the room. You always have to have the smart people around you. 

Kevin: We work with a lot of local scientists that are, that are taking a look, we've got the conservation district, we're working on a project, Oregon state university, has their team. They actually have this cool called iLab that's down at Oregon state university that. It puts together prototypes for, equipment for fishermen and for, aquaculture to use.

Kathleen: And so we're working with them to develop prototypes for different type of aquaculture equipment that we could utilize in our farming practices. 

Kevin: So you're continuing to progress and do new things and try new stuff, as you're moving forward in your whole operation. 

Kathleen: Absolutely. If you're not growing, you're dying. 

Kevin: Now I saw a very interesting video, about the burrowing shrimp problem that you guys have. in Willapa or on your farm. tell me a little bit about that.

Kathleen: Oh [00:41:00] gosh, you just asked the most loaded question ever. Um,

 burrowing shrimp is our largest issue. it is the one that is literally putting farmers out of business here in our areas, in Willapa Bay and in Grays Harbor. it is the One thing that we have, a solution for, um, we're not able to implement that solution. And so we have spent, a number of years looking for alternative solutions for burrowing shrimp for farmers to be able to survive in, both of these estuaries.

 one of the things with burrowing shrimp is that they are ecosystem engineers. And they are largely unchecked in both of our estuaries and we talked a little bit about habitat, in the ecosystem services we provide the ecosystem services that they don't provide are having a negative impact on our coastal estuaries.

 those haven't been realized by anybody outside of oyster and clam farmers, um, [00:42:00] but soon it will start impacting other resources quite significantly. and I'm sure that it'll become a higher priority, but right now it's just been just within the oyster and clam growers of our two estuaries that have been battling it.

And if they continue to do what they're doing, then fish species, crab species, other ones are going to. have quite a, difficult, are going to have a, quite an issue continuing to thrive, in our areas. 

Kevin: Yeah. I've heard that there were efforts to use chemical pesticides and other things to try and kill them, but that there was quite a backlash by consumers as well as potentially just from a health standpoint, using some of those things.

Kathleen: Yeah, so, do you drink wine? 

Kevin: Yes. 

Kathleen: Alright, do you drink coffee? 

Kevin: Yes. 

Kathleen: Okay. So, the consumer backlash, was associated with the word neurotoxin. And the fact that farmers were putting a neurotoxin into the environment, and that was bad. [00:43:00] Um, we were putting an eight ounce cup of quote unquote neurotoxins on one acre of tideland.

Which is what you consume on a daily basis by drinking a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine or a beer. So when you use scary words like neurotoxins, it doesn't allow the consumer to actually fully understand what you're doing. and so we did a lot of education of like what we're doing and how we're doing it.

 and the dilution effects associated with that because we're a agricultural farmer, just like anybody else. I own my ground just like you own your fields and I'll do everything to protect that property. and the ecosystem services it provides for the entire estuary, because that's who I am as a farmer and that's my livelihood and the livelihood of my family and my community as well.

And so whether it's a pesticide that we utilize or it's an organic, compound, or if it's an essential oil, our [00:44:00] first and foremost priority is to do enough science and research to make sure that anything that we're putting on to that ground, um, has the greater benefit of the entire ecosystem at its heart.

And so we have all the science. to prove that and to go through that process and translating that over to a social side of things can be challenging. , we had a control program for burrowing shrimp for over 60 years, and the state actually created the control program 

Because they realized the impacts it was having to the entire ecosystem. And we took ownership over that management of that program, and bore the burden on ourselves, I think we, Thought that we were doing what was best as being a steward of the environment at that point in time.

And now their perception is no longer of a stewardship one. And that's where we kind of ran into [00:45:00] some issues is the translation of that information, which we've learned from and, uh, won't make the same mistake twice. So if I could change anything, it would be that we need to facilitate the stewardship of the environment and make sure that all hands are being held accountable at the table, and not always bearing the weight of it on our backs. But as farmers.

and that's what we do. 

Kevin: I think that's so often the case, You hear in land farming people get all freaked out because they hear those magic words like neurotoxins and really are never given the opportunity to understand from the farmer's perspective, what it's all about.

And the fact that it's not really creating the kind of risks that it sounds like it might be when you hear those words. 

Kathleen: Yeah. 

Kevin: so a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing for most consumers, I think. Yeah. 

Now, I saw something, new that you guys were creating a couple of years [00:46:00] ago, called Salsa Ceviche.

Kathleen: Is that a thing? My dad did a salsa ceviche years and years ago. but we do not have salsa ceviche anymore. Okay. My dad oftentimes does things it's like before his time. Um, and they launch into niche areas and then.

like 10 years later, you're like, you remember that thing? That's like totally a thing now. Like we should start doing that again because everybody today is now doing that. But uh, no, we do an oyster shooter is a shot off of that one. And actually that was one of my first jobs here was like putting the swords inside the shot glass of the shooter so that when you popped open the top, you had like a little toothpick to help get the oyster out.

Kevin: But doesn't that sort of defeat the whole notion of like, shooting, if there's like a 

Kathleen: Slurping it. 

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. Now these shooters, are these, um, do these have booze in them, or is it [00:47:00] just, uh, oysters, 

Kathleen: It's oysters and cocktail sauce, and yeah, for some casinos and restaurants, we short fill them so that they can add a half a shot of vodka on top.

Kevin: Personally, I think gin goes better with an oyster, but that's just me. 

Kathleen: Interesting. I mean, I do tequila. 

Kevin: Ah, okay. then if I'm a restaurant or a casino and I want shooters for my customers, do you customize the glasses for particular customers 

Kathleen: Yeah, we do a lot of, um, co branding of our oyster shooters for, restaurants, We even do a lot of parties, weddings, reunions, graduations. We do all sorts of custom logos for customers that are looking for that keepsake that they want to take home. 

Kevin: And do you farm the printing on the glass out or do you guys have facilities within your own operation to do all of that?

Kathleen: You know, I wish I would have bought that equipment when the guy retired like [00:48:00] 15 years ago. He's like, he's like, you should just buy all my equipment and print your glasses. And I was like, I don't need one more thing to try and figure out to do. And, somebody else does it, but it is. It is not an easy process, so I wish I would have bought that equipment.

Kevin: You see, it's like you said, you come up with an idea and then years later, I mean, ceviche is like the hottest thing in the world right now. Everybody wants to eat ceviche. 

Kathleen: I know. We should totally bring that back. 

Kevin: Is there such a thing as oyster ceviche? I make it with a lot of fin fish, but not so much with oysters.

Kathleen: You know, our crew's making a really good oyster ceviche. 

Kevin: No kidding. Yeah. I've got to figure 

Kathleen: that one out. Yeah. They chop them up into little pieces and add it with, shrimp and fish and it's really good. Oh, that sounds good. 

are there new generations of the, Goose Point Oyster Farm coming along. 

you have your 

Kevin: diesel mechanic already. I know. 

Kathleen: Yeah, I've got him. Uh, My husband has a construction business, so we're arguing over [00:49:00] which children we get to do what, um,

 know my youngest, who's five, is definitely going to be my farm manager.

He is a brute, and he is hands on, and he is an absolute go getter, So I'm like, yeah, I'm putting him in charge of the farm. He's gonna do an amazing job at that. Yeah. 

Kevin: I love that. Now, do you guys eat a lot of oysters at home 

Kathleen: So we eat oysters every once in a while. We turn 'em into oyster chicken nuggets, like not the chicken, but it's an oyster nugget, right?

So every kid loves chicken nuggets. So we do oyster nuggets at our house, and that's what our kids like to eat. 

Kevin: What do you batter up a deep fry them or how do you make an oyster nugget? 

Kathleen: Yeah, so we actually designed a breading to complement oysters specifically. And so we just bread them and fry them.

Kevin: Might be a new product line for you guys to carry one day. 

Kathleen: Uh, we actually do. You can find it in local retailers here on the West Coast. It's an Oyster Breading. Yeah. 

Kevin: What's next for you [00:50:00] guys? Do you have something new on the horizon that you're looking to do 

Kathleen: Yeah, 

our processing plant is going through another expansion mode here in the next probably 10 years. We're gearing up for that right now. It's a three year crop cycle rotation, so it takes a little bit of time to, to build up enough inventory of doing that. And, uh, we're really looking at the shellless oyster.

Shell 

Kevin: less oyster. 

Kathleen: The shell less oyster. So we are going to reduce our carbon footprint by continuing to sell oysters without their shell. So we'll do all the work for you and you get to enjoy a lovely shucked oyster at home with a variety of different experiences. 

Kevin: You'll see 

Kathleen: a saltwater oyster in the market here really, really soon. 

Kevin: No kidding. 

Kathleen: Mm hmm. 

Kevin: Kathleen, thank you so much for all of your time and your fascinating information about what you guys are doing. 

Kathleen: Yep. You're welcome, Kevin.

Kevin: Well, that's it [00:51:00] for this episode of OYSTER-ology. Thanks to my guest, Katherine Nisbet-Moncy. 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 in on. And tell everybody you know about it, too, so we can get the word out.

I'm your host, Kevin Cox. Join us next time when we pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic.

Beth: Bubbles.