Growing up on the Lynnhaven River – a tidal estuary that flows into the Chesapeake -- Bruce, Craig and Bay McLaughlin often helped their Uncle Happy. He had a business harvesting wild oysters, and the kids loved getting wet, but as young men they headed away from the water. Bruce went into the army, Craig took a job in sales and moved to Bristol, while Bay became a venture capitalist, living in Hong Kong and finding funds for early stage technologies around the world.
But when COVID hit, Bay says, the brothers came home.
"We got together during our normal Fourth of July family holiday and had the hair-brained ideas over beers – which usually happens – that we should call Uncle Happy," he recalls. "Sure enough he hadn’t sold it, so we bought a lease, bought the old boats – barges, contacted some of the old team members and fired it back up."
And with the help of science, they’re taking the business in a new direction. In earlier times, consumers were advised to eat oysters only in months that contained the letter R. In May, June, July and August, oysters were busy reproducing, so the meat wasn’t as good. Now, however, watermen have crossed two wild oyster types to create the triploid – an oyster that’s disease resistant and sterile.
"Now the oysters stop focusing on reproduction," Bays says. "They just focus on growing and eating twelve months of the year."
The First Landing Seafood Company buys half a million tiny oysters at a time, sorting them frequently. Staffer Shaun Gavin says they’re sorted often. He loads thousands into a tube with holes of different sizes.
"What I’m about to do is take these oysters that have been growing and putting them down the sorter tube to then sort them by size but at the same time kind of give them a haircut almost – breaking off some of the extra shell that we don’t want," Gavin explains.
Bay McLaughlin says removing excess shell shapes the way oysters grow.
"You want to make sure that they grow down and create that deep, beautiful cup that holds a lot of great meat and the liquor or the liquid that makes it tastes so good."
His brother Bruce adds that sorting by size helps ensure the survival of the smaller bivalves, because oysters can double in size in a week, and bigger ones can eat eight times as much as the babies.
"The bigger ones will eat more, and so the little ones won't be able to grow in size, so we separate them by size so they're all eating at about the same rate."
For a time, small oysters live in a Floating Upweller System or Flupsy where Bay says nutrient-rich water is continuously pumped to feed them and promote rapid growth.
As cultivation of oysters has grown in popularity, Bay reports the water quality on the Lynnhaven has improved. When he was a child, only five percent of the river was fit for aquaculture. Then Virginia Beach eliminated septic systems, and the oysters did their part.
"They will filter up to 50 gallons of water in a single day as an adult oyster."
As the water got cleaner, Bruce made a delightful discovery – a creature that once lived here but disappeared as the water quality declined was back.
"This spring as we were cleaning the cages we came across three different sea horses."
Craig McLaughlin still lives in Bristol but comes back to Hampton Roads once a week to help out with the oyster farm and to drive fresh oysters to the people of southwestern Virginia.
"Everybody loves them there. It’s just that they don’t have access to them like we do here at the beach, so they’re excited when I come back and post things on social media, and I’ve got a couple of customers who buy 400-500 at a time from me."
All three brothers feel lucky to be back in the family business and proud to be helping restore the once rich habitat of this region for oysters.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
