Albany oysters go direct
For the first time in four years, Albany’s oysters are hitting international markets direct from their Oyster Harbour racks.
Ocean Foods International’s Emu Point office manager Chantelle McDonald recently acquired accreditation to act as an export agent.
She is now able to generate the required export certificates from her office rather than use costly Perth-based freight forwarders.
“We are already exporting to Singapore and started sending them across to Dubai last week,” Mrs McDonald said.
With new exporting leverage, Mrs McDonald said the next step involved establishing markets in Malaysia and China using the support of Great Southern Development Commission export advisor Elizabeth Reed.
The Oyster House at Emu Point is currently the only producer of Sydney Rock Oysters in WA and can land their product in Asian markets within 24 hours of leaving Albany, with a shelf life of 7-10 days.
Farm manager Gareth James said each oyster took 3-4 years to reach harvest size, and the farm produced about 3 million oysters annually, along with blue mussels.
“But we are looking to bulk that up now we can export overseas direct,” he said.
In other thrilling news for Albany, the farm is being visited by Australia’s only dual Michelin Star and now internationally acclaimed chef Shane Osborn on April 5.
Accompanied by an entourage of British journalists and representatives of Tourism WA, the visit is sure to put Albany’s oyster farm on the international map.
One of the delegation’s requests was to have their oysters personally shucked by legendary Ray “the shucker king” Kilpatrick.
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