Nestled in Long Cove in Deer Isle Maine, owner of Deer Isle Oyster Company Abby Barrows is testing the limits of oyster farming. Her marine plastics research will change the way aquaculturists farm oysters in the coming years, shifting plastic gear to materials that are better for our environment. Not to mention the unique merroir of Deer Isle oysters puts them at the top of our list – salty and delicious.

Photos by Savannah Tracy. Q&A as told to CEI by Deer Isle Oysters Owner, Abby Barrows, in her own words.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Abby Barrows, and I am the owner and operator of Deer Isle Oyster Company. I purchased this lease here in Long Cove where we are now.

Why did you want to start oyster farming?

The reason I wanted to start oyster farming was partially because I live on Deer Isle. We have a really strong working waterfront. But I also recognize that things are changing and lobstering is going away as we know it. It would be a huge loss for the community because we’ve built our foundation on the water. And the more I learned about oysters the more intrigued I became because they’re amazing ecosystem engineers and they do so much positive for the environment and water quality. I was interested in putting myself into sustainable aquaculture and this is an alternative or supplement to the wild caught fisheries here on Deer Isle.

How does your plastic free farming research incorporate itself into oyster farming?

Before coming to oyster farming and currently I am a marine plastics research scientist. I work on aquatic systems and plastic pollution. And so, when I purchased the farm, it came with all of this plastic gear, and it was really disheartening to me that there weren’t viable material alternatives to classic growing materials for cultivating oysters. Through the past five years and a lot of R&D, failure, and learning, we’ve been developing plastic alternatives to oyster gear with the hope this be a viable and scalable option for oyster farms here in Maine and the wider world.

What have been the biggest challenges with developing plastic free gear?

Some of the biggest challenges have been that I’m not an engineer. So there’s just been a lot of mistakes. But I think what has kept me going is that we’re not trying to reinvent how we grow oysters or how we do oyster farming. Instead, we’re just trying to look at better materials for the job, like durability and environmental impacts. We’ve learned a lot in the past 5 years, which materials work and which don’t. But each of those failures has helped the next generation of products.

What are your successes?

Working with aluminum has been really exciting, partially because aluminum is recyclable. We can manipulate it in our shop and it really seems to lend itself well to aquaculture as well. It’s lightweight, it has a very low surface area when we’re talking about oyster ranch systems, and I feel like the application for the future of oyster farming and mariculture could be great.

What are you most proud of with Deer Isle Oysters?

There’s a lot of things I’m proud of with Deer Isle Oysters. I’m really proud to have this boat, now that it is going to be helping my employees and myself have less strain on our bodies. You know, with 10 years of oyster farming, I have a lot of ailments, and I really don’t want the next generation of farmers to have that. I’m really proud of how the oysters look now. The shape and the quality of the product is something I am really excited to share with the market, friends, and family.

And the other thing I’m proud of is all the headway we’ve made with trying to make this a sustainable business both on and off water. Between making headway with the plastic free gear from having a solar powered tumbler and wash down station from having an electric truck, I’m just really trying to lessen our impact.

Is there anything that you wish you knew before starting?

I wish I had known the extent of the work. I might not have gotten into it, but now that I’m in it, I love it. I also think I would have liked to be plugged into the farmer network a little bit more so that I didn’t have to do so much trial and error on my own. But I also felt like that process was really beneficial in shaping how I did things on my farm. I also think I would like to know a little bit more about the business side of things. Business is important, and because I didn’t come with a business background knowing about running projections and what sort of insurance I need isn’t easily found.

What are your long-term goals for the business?

I want to set up and establish this additional lease that I was just granted as 100% plastic free. I want to showcase that this can be done on a commercial level and what that looks like. I want to be able to have people come out and see the farm, and see what might work for them. I know we’re not going to leave plastic behind tomorrow, but if there are some viable alternatives for people to think about replacing their gear with non-plastic gear as things need to be retired that would be the goal.

How is each oyster farm different?

The saying is that if you’ve been to an oyster farm, you’ve been to a oyster farm. Every farm is different. The only thing that is similar here in Maine is that we mostly do surface culture which is floating bags on the surface of the water. And what’s different about Long Cove and what differentiates these oysters from other oysters is the merroir. That’s the distinct flavor that’s only going to happen here because of the water. Because of the geology. Because of the current. The temperatures. Because of the different animals that live here and the water clarity. Because of the freshwater inputs. So all of those things come together to make this really unique oyster.

And here in Long Cove, these oysters are pretty exceptional, if I may say for myself. I have nothing to do with it. It has to do with this location. At low tide you would be sitting on the mud. The deep hole in the middle of the cove and the mud flats support that amount of biodiversity for the marine environment.  The other unique feature is the long stretch of water that opens up at the Southeast Harbor that is directly fed by the open ocean. That allows for very cold nutrient rich water to pour in every tidal cycle. That flush of water really lends itself to producing a delicious ouster.

What is the process of growing oysters?

We get our oyster seed from a couple of different hatcheries here in Maine. We order it thought he mail, and it arrives in a cooler box. We get them at 2 ½ to 3 mm in size, which is the size of quinoa or sand. And we put them in cedar boxes that we build with window screen in them. Then we put it into an oyster ranch and tend to them. They grow at different speeds, but we sort them out and are always trying to move the oysters into larger mesh bags.

We also have a tumbler, which is a tube with a variety of holes in it and a tripwire. And when the oysters are tumbled, it breaks off the new shell growth and causes the oyster to put on new shell and create a deeper cup. And that’s what we’re going for. It’s about 2 to 3 years until they’re ready for consumption, and we try to harvest them at 2 ½ inches.

When did your relationship with CEI start and how is it going?

I think I first heard about CEI through conferences and just being in the agriculture sphere. And I thought that maybe this is something I would want to do if I needed cash infusion to make a big purchase. I wasn’t really in the position to do that in the first few years of my business, and as I saw some of those hurdles I had to overcome to get to where I wanted to make the business more sustainable, I realized that engaging CEI would really be beneficial in the short and long term.

Would you recommend CEI services to other small businesses?

I would certainly recommend CEI’s services to other small businesses. They’ve been great to work with and a lot of support and help with all of the application process which would have been daunting without having that one-on-one mentor and then a lot of support with doing cash projections and things like that. So that was that was invaluable.

Do you remember your first experience eating oysters?

That’s a great question. I didn’t grow up eating oysters, I think because my dad was really squeamish so it just wasn’t part of our diet. Which of course I’ve changed with my daughter. I think it was in Tasmania when I was doing my undergraduate, so I think that’s when I had my first ever oyster.