SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD | Close Look at an Oyster Farm in NZ

welcome back to Outdoor Chef life in this video we're back in New Zealand and today we get to visit an oyster Farm in the North Island [Music] um Jamaican and I'm up here in the maharangi harbor with maharangi oysters just north of Auckland this is the second one just to protect it yeah all right ready for action so we have just been out unloading a harvest of oysters from our new flip system developed by New Zealander down in Marlborough sounds they're looking really good that's up hopefully in a few more years we'll have most of our farm converted event system gives us huge control of what our stocking density is we know exactly what we've got and where and how long it's growing and we're able to go out there and at any time of the day we don't have to worry about low tide and getting stuck in the mud and having to wear our lovely waders um every day we do it and grab as much or as little as we want we know exactly what's there and where whereas the other system the stick old system is stick is we have no control and we can only guess how many horses are and to process them it probably takes a whole week to do about two or three hundred dozen or a fat bag new flip system we can probably do over a thousand dozen a week easily with half as many people but yeah and we'll be able to control for things like bio links or invasive species or unwanted oyster catch or native voices or Barnacles and all that you can prevent them from growing on our bags and baskets which compete for food and resources and space for our oysters so we'll have a much better and much cleaner looking oysters and a much cleaner Harbor with our new system going feel free to put me to work I'm ready I'm ready for it expecting the crop okay every month or two I like to go around and check on it so it's a good excuse to take people on a tour on a day like today man beautiful day today all right I think we need to grab these real nice fat juicy ones oh they don't go off out of season they stay fat and creamy all year round so we only sell them in our off-season the first half of each year we saw this why are they why were they just on the barge there oh just just making space while we were out oh okay so brought them down to put them out now and now we'll take them around to where they're going to live for the next six months until um so off season right okay some of these still need a bit of growing how old are these um probably 16 months thank you so much longer are these going back in these guys will probably be here for the next six six months yeah they all grow quite a bit more then yeah they'll be grown quite a bit um I'll probably bring him in another three months and re-grade them chicken uh make sure they're not too big flat and wide and frilly yeah yeah so that's that's the sort of shape we want to get um if I find that they grow a little bit too flat in these bags because that one has it's basically like a a bigger like a wider home yeah yeah more uh more space more more round so they've only been in there for a few weeks so there's not a huge difference okay you can almost see how it's a bit more wider a little more deeper yeah like the cup yeah yeah so that's a one of the benefits of these bags so these guys are from starter this year they're only about six months old cool they're doing all right and I reckon I'll probably even get some of them ready for Harvest and then you find that if it's like a like a bigger cup then they always do like the meat inside is bigger as well juicier still was out to shower more all right and it's um yeah you can have a smaller looking oyster with more meat if the cups deeper for as if it's long and flat it's not as um thick and it's a bit Yeah a bit skinny for the for the happy customer all right with more oysters we'll be able to grow which means more filtering which means cleaner water and by able to keep control of invasive species we'll keep them at Bay this Bay is pretty interesting it's probably the most developed Bay in New Zealand which isn't saying much around the world but apart from that it's actually just a really nice spot a bit of a Hidden Gem up here this close to Auckland I didn't know about it before I first came up here to scout it out tumblers we have these guys are probably four months old so they came off as big as that but some of the ones that didn't survive but you see they're they're almost ready for another grade or they're ready for their first grade and we'll get these big ones out here that are getting their nice shapes okay see how well they're going here oh wow yeah those are good yeah probably five to six months old now these guys are looking very good they'll probably be greater than another two or three weeks okay um hopefully sooner if they get on top of things yeah come on guys okay stay on top of things I'm going in oh yeah nice they're different yeah is the water temperature pretty consistent year around here oh it gets pretty it's up to about 20. yeah it's pretty warm yeah get some pretty high growth yeah we're probably yeah might be colder than that yeah you can see how that would have been third to size um when I put these out so they're ready for a grade nice okay yeah they're doing very well yeah that's what we like to see yeah plenty of your voices for next year nice almost two minutes you never have too many oysters exactly it's a better problem to have yeah so this one hasn't done too well oh yeah you can see it's all over Dead Oh dead huh probably go up to those rows there yeah there's a stickerless doesn't I'll show you the difference on okay cool the old method with the new method um you're right yeah you can't get a bit sticky around here yeah there's no running here you get pretty fast with time bye oh shoot it's scary a big puppy dog yeah yeah the mud there's mud oh this is all mud flat so just sink in yeah there's another Farm where it's about Knee Deep it filled up a bit yeah they do huh that's about 10 pounds and the oysters will spawn free-floating lava and then they'll just settle on any clean surface of rock sticks yeah holes of boats boys whatever they can get a hand on yeah that isn't too much mud yeah but uh as soon as they're on them if you take them off it won't reattach to anything so that's why I have to use bags but when you have them like this the shapes are very random are they kind of like the wild ones they're all wild they all catch my laces are real wild to see the damage from Gabriel yeah over over six every month so slowly trying to harvest as fast as we can because as soon as they get in the mud they'll start to die off yeah so you get some pretty funny shapes sizes and differences there yeah I want my dirty too you got a lot more stiff ground yeah yeah definitely so one of the advantages of my new system the flip system too is I can um I can flip them upside down yeah and dry out the surface so any pests or unwanted oysters or other species invasive species will die off so that's the beauty of that whereas this you'll see um the little kinds of silicates yeah um Australian tube tube worm or something it looks like looks like white snot underneath the Farms here and they look pretty horrible it'll hopefully be able to clean that all up real soon not too bad oh not too bad oh that's good hungry yeah yeah yeah yeah I was wondering when I was going to play I can notice the difference between different Bays different harbors and taste this Harbor might be a bit more salty than the other hubbers yeah yeah this one is very salty yeah delicious though that's awesome you want one go ahead and just let's see it I'll go get some of those triplets so you can see the difference yeah yeah yeah yeah it's nice yeah you see all this stuff going on oh yeah yeah that's an invasive species but with uh going away from stick up the Alberta stop that growing keeper yeah I'll give you something to take home it's probably delicious yeah see if we can open these uglier shaped ones which are a bit harder to open it's still good meat still good oysters yeah but um yeah it's just uh when you wanna You Wanna Give the customer a reliable product it's the same thing every time so they're going to be upset when they get a nice beautiful shape like yeah and then they get this random flat thing yeah so having a having a system where I can control the shape um and know exactly what size they are it's all it's all harder to go the AIM that's really good so far well what's something I can do in New Zealand when covert hit and just so happens to be an oyster farm for sale and when I thought about it I I can't really think of another uh food source it's more sustainable we don't have to feed them we don't have to drench them we don't have to do anything but every all our impacts actually ends up improving the harbor and the environment by providing shelter for Snapper stingrays orcas come up here once a year to feed on the Stingrays Unfortunately they weren't here today we've had seals returned that hang out and hunt fish different species of birds native birds unless the catchers come around and proves providing more food for the environment here and cleaning the water and I I can't think of a single other species or a product you can grow it's better for the environment or as good for the environment as an oyster is creamy look at the cup on this spoon [Music] like the swinger comes like what comes in as you get through the brine I had to yeah it does get a little sweet yeah that'll be cool to get to that point like you were saying you can tell what oysters are from what bay yeah yeah it's kind of that'll be fun that'd be I'll have to go around all the oyster farms taste tests a bunch of them it's like a Winery vintage oh yeah yeah wineries it's a little bit different right this is a high-end shift grade yeah fancy ones yeah the large happy ones a lot of chefs like the medium one too yeah yeah so this is from this morning that you have to take out we've got this tank made from a company in Australia excellent thing that we needed um in New Zealand we're not so strict with our uh as the rest of the world comes with voices because we have quite clean water but because we have quite High rain for the past couple years it kind of forced our hand and we needed to have just a temporary storage thing so right now we use this more like a chiller unit but of course water is a lot better than keeping them in a cold fridge so I always just can stay in here for months but often we like to just keep it a couple weeks keep cycling new ones out send the old ones out takes a lot of time off our hands and we use half as much fuel because we're not running back and forth out to the farm to do small orders it's just ready to go whenever someone wants to pick up yeah we need an order and where does this water come from straight up the just the harbor mouth really we just go over the hill we pop it onto our back of our trailer do you think it changes the flavor once it's in there or what's that that actually holds the condition better because it chills them down and keeps them rather than having it um pulled out of hot water in summer yeah and then left in this for a couple hours we box it up and put on a container we'll keep it into can tank as long as possible get it down to that nice comfortable 10 degrees in the tank that way it keeps cooler put it in the Box fresher healthier less stress more more better survivability on the in shipping so what's your Technique on the shocking well I prefer through the side it's got a funny name but I've really forgotten it so you find the hinge right some people can do this I find it can be a quite a bit risky um you pop the hinge like so when you take your knife you want to slide it across the top to find the inductor muscle can be a bit easier said than done with a small knife like this [Music] so it made a bit of a mess of that one moreover to make it look a bit nicer yep still still a good oyster whereas I prefer Riverside so you're aiming about here take the hinge it's right side from you where the muscle is it holds it and I take a blunt knife a butter knife can work too gently wiggle that in find that Gap fry it open and you just want to slide it in until you slice that little muscle that holds the shell together they have it a bit cleaner a bit unless just slice off the little muscle on the bottom there it's good to go beautiful more how many can we get you to eat today I'll show you as much as I'm handed to just crack this one open it might be a bit fatter a bit of conditioner your softer shells these ones but easier to shove [Music] much easier to shock these these newer designs and this is a blonde oyster as you can see instead of having black gills it's actually slightly yellow yeah yeah they're a bit rare a bit cool oh really yeah but it's like the same species but it's the same species just a different phenotype just looks slightly different oh yeah yeah I highly done will taste different but we could probably Market it as something different yeah the blonde oyster yeah we can supply oysters to any Urban address around New Zealand overnight on Tuesdays to Fridays if you just visit our website at maharangi oysters.co.nz and there should be a huge range of selections hopefully depending if we're close or not for you to reverse oysters thanks so much so much that was a fun little oyster farm tour and they sent us back with a nice gift box I'm guessing is oysters so we're gonna make some breakfast right now and let's start out with poaching a couple eggs so we're doing Poached Eggs so not too much boiling going on just a simmer beautiful egg and we'll drop it in these egg whites are kind of breaking apart a whole bunch [Applause] we got bacon a classic breakfast food bacon and eggs but we're adding oysters to it bacon slip salt and pepper on the eggs bacon in other countries a little bit different because it doesn't really get crispy like bacon in the states but still really good [Music] yeah it's not as oily either so we don't have a ton of fat left in here it's not really enough fat in here so I'll just add a little bit of olive oil we're gonna toast the bread in here it's a little loaf of bread oysters are amazing raw but they're also good if you just poach them a little bit have some lightly salted water here and we're going to poach the oysters okay just drop it in poached oysters are really good sort of that the texture of poached oysters it still almost feels Raw but what it does is it kind of gets plumped it has a nice form to it yep just a minute just or less than a minute 30 seconds or so we'll take them out and see how plump they get pretty cool we'll make a quick sauce with ricotta and pesto Jocelyn's been making this sauce for breakfast on toast really good so I'm gonna steal what she's been doing now you get this nice ricotta pesto just throw that right on the toast sprinkle a little bit of the bacon [Applause] put the poached egg right on top a tiny bit of olive oil it's a little breakfast oyster toast what would oysters be if you didn't have a little bubbly [Applause] this town's pretty small so you cannot find orange juice so you got apple mango passion fruit which should probably be still really good [Music] all right guys well there it is it's taste our poached oyster toast I gotta get into the egg hold on let that eggs drizzle all over the oysters the oysters get very creamy yeah that is tasty we're pretty hungry so we're just scarfing this down oh let me get some of this drink tastes like a nice Briny bacon and eggs with a very creamy oyster all right guys well that's gonna be it for this for this big shout out to Jim thank you so much for showing us around the oyster Farm if you like the video make sure to hit that thumbs up subscribe and we'll see you guys on the next one peace [Music]

Channel: Outdoor Chef Life

Views: 128,526

Keywords: new zealand, new zealand travel, oyster farming, sustainability, sustainable seafood

Id: cP7rufnXka0

Length: 23min 38sec (1418 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2023