S3 Ep 45: The Oyster Is the Answer - Casey Davidson’s Toadfish mission

In this OYSTER-ology interview, Kevin speaks with Casey Davidson of Toadfish about creating a product-driven outdoor brand specifically to give back to oyster restoration and strengthen marine ecosystems through better water quality. Casey explains how his coastal upbringing and conservation experiences shaped a conviction that restoring habitat—especially oyster reefs—is one of the most effective, practical ways to help the water and the fisheries that depend on it. He describes Toadfish’s “Put ’Em Back” ethos, focused on recycling shells and funding restoration work through business sales, a dedicated nonprofit, and partnerships with local and regional programs. The conversation highlights the challenges of scaling restoration, the importance of public education and stewardship, and Casey's message that long-term ecosystem health depends on putting more oysters back than are taken out.

00:00 Mission First
00:27 Podcast Setup
04:35 Coastal Roots
05:59 From Politics to Tackle
07:00 Water Quality Wakeup
08:43 Oyster Roast Memories
10:11 Why Oysters Matter
11:41 Classroom Tank Demo
12:27 Starting Toadfish
14:06 Brand and Teal Knife
15:52 Rocket Ship Growth
17:38 Scaling and COVID
19:10 Designing New Products
20:42 Signature Teal Identity
21:42 What Company Is This
22:25 Best Sellers Today
22:33 Getting Into Raw Oysters
23:28 Oyster Boom Explained
24:05 Aquaculture Cleans Water
24:57 Put Em Back Origins
26:29 Shell Recycling Logistics
27:25 Nonprofit And Events
30:52 Scaling Restoration Programs
35:01 Choosing Projects Wisely
36:44 Customer Impact And Stewardship
38:52 Abalone And Finfish Restocking
42:02 Future Products And Final Call
44:58 Closing Reflections

Links:
Toadfish website (https://toadfish.com/)

Toadfish Conservation Coalition (https://toadfishcoalition.org/) See the time lapse video of oysters cleaning the water!

VCU Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program (https://ricerivers.vcu.edu/research-and-restoration/virginia-oyster-shell-recycling-program/)

Waddell Mariculture Center (https://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/waddell/facilities.html)

Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) (https://www.joincca.org/)

South Carolina Oyster Restoration Enhancement Program (SCORE) (https://score.dnr.sc.gov/)

Credits:
Guest: Casey Davidson, Founder and CEO, Toadfish
Host: Kevin Cox
Digital Deckhand: Chet Jipty
Production: OYSTER-ology Podcast

Contact: kevin@oysterologypodcast.com

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

Transcript: (prepared by Chet Jipty)

 

The Oyster Is the Answer - Casey Davidson’s Toadfish mission

 

Kevin: When you first started Toadfish, what was the focus? 

Casey Davidson: it really was, I'm gonna build a brand that gives back to oyster restoration. because I wanted to make a difference in the environment I knew oysters were the most important thing that we can do. And I still feel strongly about that. There's nothing better than we can do for the marine ecosystem than replant oysters.

[bubbles]

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

Today's episode begins with something deceptively simple, an oyster knife. But the conversation quickly becomes something much bigger and starts long before a shucking knife is ever needed. My guest is Casey Davidson, founder of Toadfish, a company many oyster lovers, fishermen, and people who just love the water know for its knives, its seafood tools, drinkware, and coastal gear. But beneath the vivid teal of Toadfish's products is a mission that runs deeper than branding or lifestyle or cool, unique merch. It is, in a word: oysters. 

Casey grew up on the coast of South Carolina in a family shaped by oyster roasts, shrimp boats, tidal creeks, and life on the water. What started as a passion for fishing and conservation eventually became an idea: Could a consumer brand actually help restore oyster habitat and improve water quality? Casey's answer? Absolutely. In our conversation, we talk about how and why he started Toadfish and some of the successes and challenges he had in doing that. He talks honestly about entrepreneurship, the chaos of rapid growth, building a company from the trunk of a hatchback, the pressure of scaling a mission-driven business, and what happens when purpose collides with reality. 

But mostly, we talk about oysters. Not just as food, but as infrastructure, as filters, as habitat, as one of the only foods on Earth that can actually improve the environment while it grows, as the future. And at the heart of it all is one central idea that Casey returns to again and again and underlines nearly all of the decisions he makes at Toadfish. The oyster is the answer. Casey explains how every sale of a Toadfish product contributes directly to its keystone priority of oyster restoration, or as he states it, to put them back. His commitment and passion for this goal rings so clearly as he describes why this is so important to him and the many things that Toadfish does to fulfill that commitment.

Now let's be clear. Despite the remarkable success of Toadfish and the prominent market share it holds in the fishing and coastal lifestyle space, Casey isn't some polished, shiny-shoed corporate type. Instead, he's a down-to-earth dude from Charleston who felt the importance of his passions and found a way to elevate them in a truly meaningful, impactful way. 

So slide a cool one into your koozie and slip on your favorite sunglasses to hear about coastal culture, stewardship, restoration, roasted oysters, raw oysters, live oysters, and oyster shell, building a business from the mission up, the best reason for inventing something new, how much you should donate to good causes, doing what you love and loving what you do, and what we all stand to lose if we fail to put more oysters back than we take out, with entrepreneur, environmentalist, philanthropist, fisherman, aquaculturist, inventor, and just a self-proclaimed South Carolina redneck who likes to fish and cares more about the future of coastal waters than any retail businessperson you've ever met, Casey Davidson.

 [bubbles]

Kevin: Casey Davidson of Toadfish. Man, it is so great to have you as my guest on OYSTER-ology. Thank you so much for being here, 

Casey Davidson: Kevin. I'm stoked. Anytime I get to talk oysters, I'm all in. 

Kevin: Well, that's what we're gonna do today. And I've gotta tell you, I've been looking at your products for a long time, especially the oyster related ones, from the oyster knives to the cut proof cloth, you've got some great stuff and I'm really excited to talk to you about your company and what you're doing in the oyster and restoration conservation world. But before I get into that, I wanna know a little bit about you and your background and kind of what brought you here.

Casey Davidson: Yeah. So, you know, I grew up on the coast of South Carolina. I'm a, uh, 14th generation redneck, And, uh, just growing up, I, uh, my family has some oyster leases that have been in our family for over a hundred years. My great uncle was a commercial shrimper. So I used to go out and sort shrimp on the shrimp boat with him as a kid in the summertime. My dad and grandfather and great-grandfather are just big anglers. So basically, just growing up, I was always on the water. so I feel really connected to that. And it's a big part of who I am as a, as a human being. And you know, just being here in my family, being here specifically on the coast, South Carolina for such a long period of time, like you see some of the issues that those habitats are facing from, overfishing, pressures, but mostly pollution and water quality. And you see a decline in blue crabs. You know, we're not catching as many or shrimp or fish and you're like, what's going on? and so. I obviously love those environments, and I love to do those things. So I wanted to, try to do something with my life that made a positive impact on, those ecosystems that I love so much. So that's kind of where I am. And, and so when I decided to start my own business, that was at the forefront of my mind, you know, how can I create a business that then gives me the ability to give back and make a positive difference, on the environment. 

Kevin: Did you study marine sciences or anything like that when you were in college? Or what did you focus on? 

Casey Davidson: No, so, I have a political science major as well as a communications, major. I got, I got two degrees and, uh, I wanted to be an environmental attorney and fight polluters and kind of go down that path. And, uh, after college obviously I love to fish and just fish a ton. My mom was always like, you fish too much. You need to study more. But I actually landed my first job with Shakespeare Fishing Tackle company outta Columbia, South Carolina. So, you know, I started designing Ugly Sticks and, Shakespeare products and I never looked back from the product design and development perspective. It was just so fun. And I got to be around what I love to do, which is fishing. So, I try to fish once a week. I go at 5:00 AM on Wednesday mornings and just fish the sunrise and I'm back, by nine or 10, but I at least get that one morning out on the water. And it's really good. It's good for the soul. 

Kevin: It's a hell of a nice way to start the day. I'll tell you that much. 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, for sure. So I was doing product development and then, oh, but before that one big impactful thing that kind of led me to oysters even more than just growing up around oysters was I did an internship with the Coastal Conservation Association, CCA, in South Carolina. The director's name was Scott Whitaker and I just cold called him. I was like, “Hey man, I wanna do an internship.” And, uh, he's like, “well, we've never had one before.” And I said, “well, I'll come work for free.” And what I was trying to do is I, I was doing my, uh, political science thesis on basically the process of fisheries management in the state of South Carolina. So it was interesting 'cause they were trying to push a bill through on regulating, uh, Marine Fin Fish, and I got to go work with their lobbyist and go to the State House and watch, how the bill went from them drafting it to getting, congressman to pitch it and walk it through that whole process of how a bill becomes a law. And that summer we actually did get that passed. But when I was there doing that internship with CCA when we got through with that, Scott looked at me and he said, “this is great. Like, we can protect species that didn't have regulations. However, you know, the number one reason for fish mortality?” And I said, I don't know, you know, maybe commercial fishing, whatever. And he said, “no, it's not even a fraction of the problem.” He said the number one problem is water quality. 

Casey Davidson: And that just hit me. I'm like, wow. that's why all these fish are dying or declining. You see down in Florida, the big red tides we're having stuff like that. And it's like what can we do to make an impact on that? And that's where, I arrived at oysters. 

Kevin: Tell me a little bit about your first connection to oysters. 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, so down South it's a lot different than what y'all are doing. You know, we didn't have like a raw bar scene, right? Nobody was shucking oysters on a half shell. But when you had a party and you wanted to have folks over, you did two primary things and one was an oyster roast. we have a big, nice wild native population of oyster clusters here in South Carolina. And so we would go out at low tide with my father, my grandfather, and we'd pick, you know, two bushels of oysters, go back power wash 'em. Get out the steamers, have the friends and neighbors over your relatives, and we would steam them and then lay 'em out on a table and you just sat around and you talked and you opened oysters. And they're very good that way. You just steam 'em till they're hot. And then when you open 'em you know, they've just got that nice oyster liquor and they're salty and delicious. and it's cool because they also taste very different seasonally. if you get 'em like in early March when the water's still cold, they're kind of setting up and they got that, you know, little milkier 'cause they're like, you know, about to spawn. They taste so sweet. You know, and so my earliest memories of oysters were picking oysters going out, which was fun. Like, you're in the mud, you get to, you know, get on your mud boots, get knee deep in the mud, and you pick the oysters up and then I actually get to go back and eat them. So, you know, I was doing that, at a very, very young age. probably five, six years old. 

Kevin: You're making me hungry just talking about that, oyster roast and the steamed oysters. when you decided to focus your efforts on conservation and water quality especially, how did you know that oysters were something that would be instrumental in that effort?

Casey Davidson: Yeah, so South Carolina is pretty far ahead of a lot of states actually. We have a program called SCORE, South Carolina Oyster Restoration Enhancement Program, and the state started that back in the nineties and they actually get about a half million dollars a year allocated in the state budget. And the way it works down here, since we do have such a big wild native, population, is that when you put out old shells or put 'em back, uh, from these oyster roasts, you put the shells back in the summertime and when the oysters spawn that spat will, float through the water and, attach to the old shell. And the old shell obviously super high in calcium. All those things that those baby oysters need. And in about a year and a half you'll have a nice looking oyster reef. So they had been recycling shell and replanting oysters for a while. And you know, I knew a little bit about it and then the more I, learned about it, I was like, man, one oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. Like, here's the answer. the oyster's the answer. Like, it's pretty hard to fight these polluters. It's pretty hard to fight runoff. These are all things that are gonna happen, right? But that natural filter, seems to be something tangible that I could put my head around and say, Hey, if we plant more oysters, we got a chance to offset this water quality issue that we're having.

Kevin: So, one of the things I love on the Toadfish website is the little video clip you have of the two aquariums next to each other showing in time lapse how the oysters clean the water in one.

Casey Davidson: Yeah, that's such a cool experiment. I actually do that for local schools here too, in the Charleston area. So I actually did one last week. I had, 50, five year olds and I went and picked oysters on an early morning tide. Brought the tank, the sea water, and showed them the oysters in, Charleston, we've got a really muddy bottom. So the water's like very, very dark. And so for them to say like, wow, this tanks, you can't see anything. And then in three hours for it to be crystal clear is just an, it's a wow moment for, for everybody. But especially kids, they're like, man, I really know what oysters do now. 

Kevin: Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about Toadfish. Were you the founder of the company? 

Casey Davidson: I am, yeah. So I started Toadfish in, 2016. I, I had been working at Shimano, uh, which is another big fishing tackle manufacturer heading up their product development. Got let go from that job and, I was like, man, what am I gonna do? I had a six month old little girl at the time, and I had always wanted to start my own business. And I kind of saw a gap in the market, honestly, for this. And obviously it just aligned with what my passions are, which is, you know, conservation and fishing and all the things. So, I saw like Tom Shoes and all these companies that were building brands based on a give back and there was nothing like that in this outdoor fishing space. And so, from the very beginning with Toadfish, you know, the idea originally was just an oyster knife 'cause I knew I could sell 'em. So I designed a cool oyster knife. I went to, uh, my cousin's oyster farm on a Friday. I'd pick up singles from them and then I'd go to the Charleston Farmer's Markets on the weekends and I'd sell the oysters and I'd sell the oyster knives. And the idea was an oyster knife that replanted oyster beds. And it seems simple to me. And so we've always given a portion of every sale to oyster restoration, and I think we're probably one of the largest, if not the largest oyster restoration funder in the United States now. 

Kevin: No kidding. 

Casey Davidson: Over the last 10 years.

Kevin: When you first started Toadfish, what was the focus? Was it I'm gonna build a consumer brand company and use that as a vehicle to give back? How did that work for you? 

Casey Davidson: it really was, I'm gonna build a brand that gives back to oyster restoration. And then I went from there because I knew I wanted to make a difference in the environment and I knew oysters were the most important thing that we can do. And I still feel strongly about that. There's nothing better than we can do for the marine ecosystem than replant oysters. And so from there, that was the inspiration. And then I said, okay, now what's the brand? Mm-hmm. And I came up with Toadfish because it's an Oyster Toadfish is the scientific name for it. And it's kind of just this gnarly cool fish that not a lot of folks know about unless you are an angler and you've caught them or interacted with them. And so I was like, what a cool mascot. It also I don't know, this sounds silly, but like when I was in high school I remember all the kids that were like really preppy. They wear like the red fish belts or tarpon hat or something. And it was just like really trendy, But like those dudes have never fished a day in their life and I'm like, I'm just gonna do a Toadfish because you gotta know something to even know what a Toadfish is.

And then I just kind of went from there designed the logos and then what's gonna be the first product? I'm like, well, what can connect people most closely with oyster restoration? An oyster knife, because I knew I could sell them because I knew that these farmer's markets existed and there was all these tourists in my town like probably 70% of the economy in the whole state of South Carolina is tourism related. So we've got a melting pot of people coming from all over the country. What an opportunity to educate people when they're here that's like, Hey, you're gonna be opening oysters, this knife replants oysters, and here's why it's important to replant them. So it was just a great connection point for the whole brand, and it was an anchor piece for the whole brand. And after 10 years we probably sell more oyster knives than anybody on the planet.

Kevin: Did it take off pretty quickly or was it kind of a slow grind to build Toadfish? 

Casey Davidson: Man, it was a rocket ship and that comes with good and bad, right? So originally in my first year I really started it as a wholesale business, meaning I was going out selling to independent dealers. And you know, I had everything on the line here. like this was all my life savings that I'd put into this to, to start it. so I would map out like independent dealers, gift shops, seafood stores, fishing tackle dealers, ACE Hardwares, whatever I could find. And I would get in the car at a Suzuki hatchback. I'd gotten off Craigslist for like 1500 bucks. And I would load it full oyster knives. And then I had a shrimp cleaner, which was our second product. That was a really interesting product. I'd watched my grandmother do that forever. There's this little red plastic one and I'm like, how can I improve this? This product's been around forever and I added this little blade to the end of it, so it would butterfly the shrimp as well, so you didn't have to go back and, use a paring knife.

But, so anyways, I put those in the back of the car and I I would just hit every single shop and walk in cold and try to sell oyster knives and shrimp cleaners. And then I'd go from Charleston, Miami, and then the next week I'd get back, and then I'd go to Charleston, Virginia Beach. And then. Charleston to Orlando, to Corpus Christi, Texas, and then back. so that first year it just started going really well. 'cause people were like, sure, I like what you're doing. They're really supportive. I would go out and collect driftwood and make these little oyster knife displays that would hold six knives and put a little plaque on it that said, you know, 10 square feet of oyster beds planted with every product sold, And people would buy 12 or 24 units of everything. So I was writing little thousand dollar orders and in my first year, we did over half a million dollars in sales just out the trunk of my car. 

Kevin: That's unbelievable. So then you had some growing pains. How did you grow it? 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, that's really, I think the hard part as an entrepreneur is figuring out scale and when to scale, when to hire, when to take on investors, you know, all those things like navigating all that is super hard. Especially with really rapid growth. And then the big thing was COVID. So when COVID hit, the business just absolutely went bonkers. It quickly became a very, very big business. I had 30 employees. I was managing a 30,000 square foot warehouse. And you know, it was the first time for me doing a lot of that. I was just a redneck that liked to fish. So… It's, it's tough. Running a business is, all consuming for sure. And it, it takes a toll on your whole life too, right? Because like, I had young kids and you're not present and those things. 

So after COVID I hit some headwinds on uh, cash flow, Inventory got in some problems there. I won't go into the details But, uh, I had to sell the majority stake in my business in 2023. So now I'm owned by a, fishing tackle distributor called Folsom Corporation, which is a really good privately held company that's been in business for like 150 years. And we're still doing what we've always done. We're restoring oyster beds. I'm leading a great team, innovating, bringing a lot of really cool new products to market, but I don't have to go to sleep at night now thinking about how I'm gonna make payroll the next week. So I see that I'm definitely sleeping a lot better than I used to. 

Kevin: So when you were growing and when you saw this incredible success in your first couple of years, how did you decide what kind of products to add on to your lineup?

Casey Davidson: You know what, to be honest, I've always just designed stuff that I like and that I think's fun and people like that. and I also just listen to my customers. And every product that's a great product solves a problem and solves them in a simple way. So like, I think a good example of like a staple item in our lineup that has consistently sold well over the last, years would be the Suction Cup Koozie, that was like our, unbelievable success story. We sold 1.7 million suction cup koozies in a two and a half year period. And it was just because you'd get on the boat and you'd set your beer down and then somebody would hit a throttle and go inevitably, and then the beer would just fall on the floor. And you're like, Why are we doing this? There's gotta be an answer here. And so we developed this suction cup on the bottom of the koozie, and that went viral because people are like, yeah, I have that problem too. I spill drinks all the time on the boat. 

Kevin: This happens to me every time I go out and it's like, damnit, I did it again.

Casey Davidson: Yeah. So I don't know, I guess the short answer is I just made stuff that's fun and to just solve problems that I had. 

Kevin: So not only are you an environmentalist, a fisherman, a business person, but you're also a little bit of an inventor it sounds like. 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, I would say I'm a very good product designer. I'm a very average CEO and I'm a great environmental conservationist. 

Kevin: One of the things that really stands out with Toadfish products is this unique aquamarine color that appears like that's your signature color. Tell me a little bit about that and how you got there and, what it means to you. 

Casey Davidson: So, originally it was just because oyster knives were wooden or black or white, and I wanted something at that oyster table that was a conversation starter, right? Because you go to these big events, everyone has their own oyster knife and then there's just bright teal oyster knife. And so somebody could say, what's that about? Where'd you get that? And that was kind of the idea of it. And then it was working. So, I want people to look across and see somebody fishing on the water and they're like, oh wow, they've got a Toadfish rod. And they immediately know that it's that. Or you're in a store and you see a teal, crab cracker. Oh wow, that's a Toadfish. 'cause I see that it's teal. So I just kind of stuck with it. yeah, the Toadfish teal is our signature color. 

Kevin: Is Toadfish, a fishing company? Is it a gear company? Or is it just sort of a lifestyle company? How do you define or see yourself? 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, I don't know. I've just been making stuff that I like and it's been working. And for me it's the kitchenwares that pay the bills. So we're the number one name in seafood tools on the market, and that's what we're known for. Yeah. And so that's our bread and butter plus the suction drinkware is kind of its own thing, right. And fishing's probably only, 30% of the business. But it's fun and it gives me an excuse to go fishing and tell my wife that I'm working. So we're gonna keep working well to controlling testing. I mean, you gotta do it right? So, yeah, we're, we're gonna keep making the fishing stuff. 

Kevin: What today is your hottest selling product 

 Casey Davidson: It's the shrimp cleaner. 

Kevin: Is it really?

Casey Davidson: That and the smart grip drinkware.

Kevin: Yeah. 'cause a lot of people are intimidated to shuck oysters, 

Casey Davidson: Yeah. And oysters kind of niche, not a lot of people shuck their own oysters, so, you know, I think it's aspirational to wanna open your own oysters, but it's hard to get into and source but I love it. Like I, I love to get a box of a hundred oysters and invite my neighbors over and open, you know, oysters on a half shell and have a happy hour. it's amazing, especially just to get to try different varieties and

Casey Davidson: And new flavors and stuff. I mean, I'm all in. I absolutely love it, even though I wasn't exposed to that as a kid. Right. Like, we didn't have, much money to go to a raw bar in downtown or anything. So, we just ate steamed oysters. I don't think I had a raw oyster until I was an adult, but 

Kevin: what was your experience with that first raw oyster?

Casey Davidson: I loved it. I thought it was way better than steamed. I think they're meant to be eaten cold in a half shell and naked. 

Kevin: Right. Do you think there's an oyster renaissance of sorts going on in this country or even around the world right now?

Casey Davidson: Oh, a hundred percent. Even from the time I started Toadfish 10 years ago it just becomes increasingly more popular which is great. I mean, in a lot of the states we do oyster restoration with places that have strong aquaculture, foundationally, seem to have better native populations as well of oysters. And I think it's becauseit's taking a lot of the demand off the wild oysters because that's nicer to have a perfectly shaped cuppy oyster grown in a cage. So I think aquaculture can really work hand in hand with, oyster restoration. It's the only food on earth that while it's growing, it's cleaning the water. And, I can't think of another food that you can take from a seed and you put the seed in the water or in the ground. and then you're only taking out what you put in and while it's in, it's having a positive impact, then if you take and recycle the shell and put that back, you're actually having a net positive impact. There's not another single food on planet Earth that I can say that about that. I can't think of any. It's, it's just amazing, especially 

Kevin: When you consider, it requires no extra food and it requires no fertilization. I mean, if you have clean water and a, you know, a good environment for them to grow in, that's pretty much all you need to do. Just take care of 'em a little bit once in a while, but they pretty much do it all themselves. 

Casey Davidson: A hundred percent. 

Kevin: So let's talk a little bit about the, mission, of Toadfish and that you've already described a little bit of, how did you come up with the notion of put 'em back?

Casey Davidson: It's just, uh, kind of twofold, right? Like when you're growing up and you want to catch and release a fish, it was like, come on man, put 'em back. That's my southern, you know what I mean? Like, let's put, let's put that big old sea trout back. Let's put 'em back. You know, 

Kevin: We don't need to kill everything, right?

Casey Davidson: Yeah, yeah. Let's let that fish spawn. That's a spawning fish. Let's put 'em back. And then also then when I got into oyster restoration, it's like, okay, you got these old shells. Let's put 'em back. let's not put 'em in the landfill where the majority of the oysters go. Or when I was a kid, we'd put 'em in the driveway, you know, you'd have an oyster roast and that's what we had to, we lived on a dirt road and that's what was used to fill the potholes, or companies were taking oyster shell and breaking it up to using concrete. 'cause it looked pretty, having white shell in concrete slabs. But the environment needs those shells as we know. And so the put 'em back movement kind of arrived out of that notion. And it still amazes me that people don't know that, right? Like it should just be like recycling a water bottle. You know, if you're gonna get oysters, you need to be a steward of that oyster and you need to recycle your shells. Whether you're shucking a hundred on your porch, or you're getting two bushels to do an oyster roast. Take those shells and take 'em to a drop off site.

And the large majority of the funds that we've donated have gone to buying shell. Buying spat, which is, uh, you know, baby oysters to spat shell in areas that don't have enough natural beds to just put the shell back and regrow. Or it's been to go to creating dropoff sites or buying trucks and trailers to then transport the shell from those dropoff sites to a quarantine location to then put 'em back. So everything that we funded mostly, is all directly habitat related in terms of the oyster recycling process or actually purchasing Shell, to then put back and regrow new reefs. 

Kevin: How directly involved do folks at Toadfish get with kind of hands-on work, as opposed to identifying organizations and funding them? 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, so it's both. So, we started our own nonprofit called the Toadfish Conservation Coalition in 2019. And the reason that we did that is so that we could actually generate more funds for oyster restoration. So our nonprofit is unique in the fact that it's a hundred percent give back. We have no overhead. It's all volunteer, based. So 100% of the funds that go into our nonprofit, primarily come from the cashflow of, my core business. But also we do take donations on our website. You can add $5 at checkout.

We also do a lot of fundraising events. We have a fishing tournament we do every year. We have our big event called Shellebration, which is November 8th, this year at Bowen's Island in Charleston, South Carolina. And that event has just gone huge over the last 10 years. You know, we'll sell out of, tickets, in two, three weeks time on that one. And last year at the end of the event, we raised over $50,000 after we'd paid everything out and a hundred percent of those proceeds go to Oyster restoration. 

But to answer your question specifically, so. Yeah, with our nonprofit we try to do events every month. So we do like a beach sweep or a marsh cleanup, or physically going and getting volunteers as well as, my team that, uh, they're all required to do some physical work each month. And we also volunteer at the SCORE program, which is right here locally for us, since it's easy, they have shell bagging events. They have events where you could just go pick the trash out of the shell that people have recycled, and then also they have deployments. So in the summer we get to go out with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in the SCORE program and actually put the shells back in the environment and plant oyster reefs. So we do that as much as we can, but obviously we're running a for-profit business too, and we're all very busy doing that. So we do identify other nonprofits that are doing oyster restoration work, and we donate to them and we try to earmark those funds as specifically as we can for specific site locations for deployments and or specific shell buys or spat buys. And there's a cool map on our website, on our mission page where you can see a lot of the partners that we work with on a regular basis. And there's some great ones, right? Like if you're in the Virginia Chesapeake Bay area, there's an incredible program. It's a Virginia Orchard Shell Recycling Program. This guy named Todd, he's incredibly passionate.He actually has the biggest oyster restoration program on the planet going right now in terms of the mass area that they have allocated to do replanting in South Carolina, last year, SCORE replanted, almost 50,000 bushels.

Kevin: Wow.

Casey Davidson: So you're talking about acres and acres and acres of oystersAnd we're just a small state, but the way that we're able to do it is because we have a huge breeding population, oysters, and we can load the barges. We actually help fund this as well, We rent the barges to put the shell on. You take a big backhoe and you have these huge shell piles that you've probably seen. Yeah. You load those onto the barges and then you have this water cannon and they go out on a low tide and go right along the bank and shoot the shell right along the bank. And so you can cover, you know, an acre and a half of ground. And then when the oysters spawn, you just created a whole acre of oysters from this barge full of old shell and rinse and repeat and do that as many times as you can.

But the issue that most oyster restoration programs have and I've worked with a lot of them across, nine or 10 different states now is scale. So a lot of 'em are community based, volunteer based and so they're limited by how many shells can I get? And they're becoming harder and harder to come by because it's harder to get people to recycle. It's hard to have the infrastructure in place to take the shelf from a recycling location to a quarantine location. 'Cause they have to sit out for like six months before you can put 'em back. And then to have the infrastructure of the barge and the staff to go and put it back. Also in places like Virginia with Todd's program, VCU, Rice Rivers Foundation, they don't have a natural breeding population of oysters because they've been completely wiped out.

And most of the Chesapeake Bay. By the zebra mussel and water quality and all the myriad issues that the Chesapeake Bay, faces. So they actually have to buy shell or recycle as well. They recycle program, they're picking up from a bunch of restaurants. Then they have to put those shells in big tanks, then they heat the water. And then we pay for 10 or 15 million spat, those go in and they have to wait till the shell sets spat and then put 'em in baskets and then onto a big, Carolina skiff that we bought for that program and then put 'em back. So it's all about like, how can these programs scale to do more? And it's hard because you're limited on the amount of shell that you can get, the amount of spat you can get and all those things as well as trucks, trailers, and the logistics around hauling and delivering a hard substrate, is limiting, right. But we have to figure out a way to get it done. Right. So in South Carolina for example, although we have, in my opinion, probably the best oyster recycling program in the United States.

Kevin: Really. 

Casey Davidson: It's the most well funded and we put back more oysters than anybody else create more reefs. But with that being said, we paid for a study, a few years back. where we surveyed everyone that harvests their own oysters in South Carolina. So even in the state of South Carolina, we're taking out 120,000 bushels a year, and we're only replanting 50. So model that out over 25 years. 

Kevin: So there's more work to be done, 

Casey Davidson: Yeah. And that's the big biggest success story, right? 

Kevin: Yeah. 

Casey Davidson: So like there's other states that are way far behind that, that need funding and, and need to figure out how to make it happen, you know There's a program in Georgia called Shell To Shore. And this originally started, it was two guys with, a pickup truck, and they wanted to start picking up oysters in the Atlanta, Georgia area from restaurants, which is pretty far from the coast. And they just started and they reached out to us, they're like, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna collect shells from these restaurants. We're gonna take 'em back to the coast and we're gonna put 'em back. And now that program has expanded and become, an actual fantastic program. But it was really just the passion of two guys that were like, we see this need and we're not doing hardly any recycling in Georgia, so let's start it. 

So I think if you see that problem in your area, all it takes is a little gusto and a pickup truck, and you can get going.  These programs are legit, like, it's, it's people that are passionate, like you and I. You know, they're volunteering their time to go shell bagging events and there's folks like this all over, uh, people that really care about this. But the problem with oyster restoration is there's no real centralized organization that's driving this and it's very fragmented. And the communication could be better, I think, between all these programs to try to figure out best practices and everyone's competing for interest and funds. And a lot of stuff that we fund too is just based upon what we're interested in and what stories we can tell. but I get great stories that come by my desk all the time and I just wish I could fund everything. You really wanna, you know, help everybody but it, it's, uh, it's hard. 

Kevin: How do you choose who to support and who not to support or what projects to undertake?

Casey Davidson: So I have a board of directors that helps with that as well. You know, but for the most part, I look at a couple things. I try to pick organizations that allow us to earmark the dollars for specific projects so that you don't run into a situation where you're funding marketing or funding. A bunch of overhead that a lot of nonprofits have. And so sometimes these smaller, more community based projects are honestly more legit from a actual, you know, habitat restoration perspective. But you gotta do the legwork and the research and talk to them and say, Hey, what are you gonna do with the money? You know? So you just gotta dig a little bit. But. for the most part, everybody's legit. But it's also cool, the ones we do pick too, obviously, from a selfish perspective as well as a fun perspective. We only really fund projects where they're like, yeah, you can come on build day and film this. You know? So then it allows us to do two things, right? It's like, Hey, you know, we're gonna toot our own horn a little bit but it's also just to say, Hey, we're doing what we're saying we're doing, you know, we're out here with this project, we're filming this day, we're putting back, you know, fun stuff. Like, uh, CCA did a clam deployment and they used drones, so it was super cool. Like, they flew drones and scatter-spread all these clams over this area and stuff like that. Wow. That's cool. I would encourage all of your listeners to volunteer and give to oyster restoration to the capacity that it hurts because it needs it and there's nothing better that you can do if you love the water than to replant oyster beds. 

Kevin: If I go to your site and I buy a product, how as a customer do I know what impact my actual purchase is having?

Casey Davidson: Yeah, so basically we take a percentage of our profits and, we donate. So a lot of people donate, you know, 1% for the planet or whatever We're somewhere between five and 10% quarterly. Okay. So, you know, it's as much as we can and still sustain our own business. And we're really proud of it. I mean, it's a lot more than most folks do. but obviously it helps us sell product too. So it's all a win-win for everybody. And so like if you are starting a business or you own a current business, why not find a way to give back because it also comes back tenfold. I'm a true believer in that. So, you know, we're doing the best we can to communicate that, And, I think having a brand that gives back is almost essential in today's, e-commerce world. 

Kevin: Do you get a sense that the customers are really understanding what's going on in the water or what you guys are doing and the kind of success that you're having?

Casey Davidson: I think some are, uh, again, I think we could do a better job. I think a lot of people probably just buy it and it's like, this is a cool koozie, they have no idea. that we're playing oyster beds, so thanks for helping me get the word out, Kevin.

Kevin: What's that message that you want somebody to understand? 

Casey Davidson: One, if you're wanna be a steward of the environment and you like to eat oysters, just be responsible. And the fact that you need to recycle them, that's number one. Two, I think folks could be more conscious on water quality issues.

Kevin: Mm-hmm. 

Casey Davidson: There's a lot of science around that, especially for people that live close in and around the water. A quick shameless shout out on my podcast, the Put 'em Back podcast. I had a guy from the Charleston Waterkeeper on recently, and he just talked about fertilizers and pesticides and all this things that are running off into the rivers and creeks. Just be mindful of what you're putting in the environment and that it all flows downstream. Everything from the tread of your tires, whatever you're doing it all ends up in the ocean. So, let's plant more oysters and clean that water. 

Kevin: I read something about an abalone program you have 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, the abalone thing's pretty cool. So that actually came out of the product first. I go to Asia every year for like 15 days and just visit my factories and work on new products. And this is interesting. They actually grow a huge amount of, abalone in Asia and It's a very sought after food and they've got a good setup over there to sustainably grow abalone, but I didn't know much about it. And then I started researching it and it's a highly endangered species from a wild abalone perspective. And they were making these knife handles where they were, cutting slivers of the wild abalone shell to make these beautiful, just stunning knife handles. And I'm like, wow, this, what a great opportunity just like I did with the oyster knife, to take a product that can connect people directly with some educational aspect and then be able to take a portion of the proceeds and fund bringing back this endangered species. 

So there's actually a great organization called, the Santa Monica Bay Foundation that is trying to restore wild abalone and they're doing amazing work. so I called them and, uh, they're like, yeah, this is what we're doing. And I'm like, “Cool, can we give you guys some money and earmark it for this abalone project?” They're like, “Hell yeah, let's go.” So then I created a beautiful Damascus, steel chef knife set with this abalone inlay shell. Just a gorgeous kitchen knife set. And yeah, we sell 'em and we're able to fund the Santa Monica Bay Foundation now for this project. So it's kind of, again, full circle and fun and cool and it's a win-win for everyone. 

Kevin: What about Finfish? Anything you do with that? 

Casey Davidson: Yeah, so we funded some hatcheries that are doing great work. So in South Carolina we have the Waddell Mariculture Center, which is actually doing wild Cobia. Which is a species that was highly over fished on my hometown river and the Broad River growing up. I could go out and sight cast cobia during spawn season, just right on the surface and see three or four fish every morning. then everyone found out about it. And then you could walk across the Broad River there'd be so many boats during spawning season lined up to catch the Cobia. So obviously, fast forward 20 years of doing that and you got no Cobia left. So they're trying to restore Cobia. It's all important work and and cool and interesting and fun. And I love to fish. So a lot of what I do with Toadfish is what I like to do. It's fun to visit these fish hatcheries. It's fun to go to Virginia and shovel shell So, just creating your life and creating a business for yourself that you get to do what you love every day is just an absolute dream come true for me. And I'm just so blessed to be able to do this every day. 

Kevin: If you can combine your passions with making a living, then you've sort of found the answer to the Big Question, you know?

Casey Davidson: Yeah, exactly. I may not ever get super rich or anything like that, but I could care less. I get to fish every week and I get to design products, and I get to restore oyster beds, like, you know. I'm as happy as an oyster, not a clam. 

Kevin: ? What, uh, what's coming down the pipeline or what kind of new ideas or plans are you cooking up?

Casey Davidson: I am working on a beach chair right now. That is super cool. And I'm super stoked about, again, it's a totally new category. I know it's random, but. I, I like to go to the beach and I like to drink cocktails at the beach and surf fish. And I'm designing a cool chair, uh, right now, which I'm excited about. Will probably come out next year. So, little sneak preview there. It'll be cool. It's, it's interesting. it's different. So 

Kevin: So if there was one message you wanted to give about Toadfish and the work you guys do, what would that be?

Casey Davidson: The oyster's the answer. And habitat is everything. I mean that's it. Like we've gotta replant more oysters than we're taking out, or we're screwed. I wanted to say the F word there, but that's the, I mean, I don't wanna bum anybody out, but like, that's the path we're headed down, we're taking oysters out of the environment than we're putting back in. I don't want us to end up in a situation like I'm not picking on the Chesapeake Bay. There's no oysters left, and their whole, whole ecosystem collapses and you got a 30 year decline in blue crabs. and that's a huge part of their culture. and they're losing that. But you don't want that to happen other places. And that's the path we're headed down if we don't get serious about making this a priority and earmarking everything we can, federal funds, state funds, private donors, we've gotta get serious about oyster restoration. if we want to have oysters in 20 years, 

Kevin: We made this mistake 150 years ago and we're making it again today, right.

Casey Davidson: Yeah, I mean, in South Carolina, for example, I read in some passage from like the, early 16 hundreds when they first came here, that the average size of an oyster was a dinner plate. So like, now we have a, you know, three inch oyster that's not living much longer than that because of water quality issues, you know? So, and we have in the state of South Carolina, I think, they estimate less than 5% of the oysters that were here when the pilgrims landed. And we have one of the best oyster populations in the United States. So it's, it's pretty dire. And, uh, we gotta, we gotta get after it. 

Kevin: Amen to that.

Well, uh, OYSTER-ology is gonna try and help do that and get people, uh, to know more about what's going on and find organizations like Toadfish and the work that you guys are doing with the proceeds that you're generating from these products. And, uh, 

Casey Davidson: Awesome. Thank you. 

Kevin: I really, I really admire what you're doing and the commitment that you make. It's not just a business to make money, it's a business to make a difference, and I really admire that. 

Casey Davidson: Awesome. Thanks Kevin. Thanks for having me. 

Kevin: Well, Casey, it's been great having you. I really enjoy talking to you.

Casey Davidson: Awesome. Thanks so much, buddy.

Kevin: All right, thanks again. 

Thanks again to Casey Davidson for joining me on OYSTER-ology today. Links to Toadfish and some of the amazing organizations that Casey mentioned are given in the show notes for this episode, so check them out if you have a minute. 

What really struck me throughout our conversation is that Casey isn't just selling oyster knives and very cool coastal gear. He's trying to rebuild habitat. His put-them-back mission doesn't come from a boardroom. It comes from a lifetime spent on the water in oyster roasts, muddy creeks, shrimp boats, and watching those environments slowly change over time. And the mission is simple. If we take oysters from the water, we need to put something back in return. 

Because oysters are the answer. They filter water. They build reefs. They protect shorelines. They create habitat for countless other species and help hold the entire coastal ecosystem together. That's why the most important takeaway from today's episode is that we are taking more oysters out of the environment than we are putting back in.

That's why shell recycling matters. That's why restoration matters. That's why stewardship matters. So if you care, and I don't think you'd be listening if you didn't, learn more about oyster recycling and restoration programs where you live. Support the people doing the work. Recycle your own shell. And as Casey said

Casey Davidson: Volunteer and give to oyster restoration to the capacity that it hurts because it needs it and there's nothing better that you can do if you love the water than to replant oyster beds.

Kevin: Thanks so much for listening to OYSTER-ology today. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can discover us too. And hey, send me a comment about any special recycling operations that you know of and want me to talk to. I'd love to learn more and you can help. And please be sure to join me again next time when I pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic.

[bubbles]