East Coast Shellfish Growers Association June 2024 Newsletter

East Coast Shellfish Growers Association 

The East Coast Shellfish 

Growers Association represents 

nearly 2,000 shellfish 

farmers from Maine to 

Florida and the Gulf states. 

These proud stewards of the 

marine environment produce 

sustainable, farmed shellfish 

while providing thousands of 

jobs in rural coastal towns. 

The ECSGA informs policy 

makers and regulators to 

protect a way of life. 

111 Myrtle St. 

New Bedford, MA 02740 

admin@ecsga.org 

Executive Director 

Bob Rheault 

(401) 783-3360 

bob@ecsga.org 

President 

Jeff Auger 

Vice-President 

Chris Matteo 

Secretary 

Alex Hay 

Treasurer 

Ben Lloyd 

Connecticut ..... .Brian Yarmosh 

Delaware ......... .Mark Casey 

Florida .........Adrianne Johnson 

Gulf Coast ........ .Terry Boyd 

Maine ............... .Dan Devereaux 

Maryland ......... . Tal Petty 

Massachusetts ..Mark Begley 

New Hampshire . Brian Gennaco 

New Jersey ...... .Bill Avery 

New York ............Matt Ketcham 

N. Carolina . Katherine McGlade 

Rhode Island .... . Matt Griffin 

South Carolina .Trey McMillian 

Virginia ............ .Chad Ballard 

Equipment Dealer 

Heather Ketcham 

Shellfish Dealer 

Chris Sherman 

Ex Officio 

Gef Flimlin, Ed Rhodes, 

Leslie Sturmer 

Editor: Ann Kane Rheault 

From the President 

Warmer Days Ahead 

President 

Jeff Auger 

Spring has sprung! It’s the 

best time of year to be on a 

farm, with food in the water 

and growth on our shellfish. 

Every year I look forward to 

the signs we see all up and 

down the coast, confirming 

that we are heading into the 

months of sandals and shorts. 

Worm hatches, baitfish in 

the water and osprey in the 

air are signs that waters are 

warming and the growing 

season will soon begin. 

Unfortunately, ocean temperatures continue on 

their upward climb over historical levels and warmer 

waters are now the new normal. Working on the 

water and being so connected to our ecosystems 

gives us a first-hand look at how those ecosystems 

have been changing. In Maine we are seeing black 

sea bass in the river and blue crabs on the flats. It 

also looks as if we are headed for a warmer summer 

in 2024: NOAA just released their official summer 

forecast (July, August and September) predicting 

above-average temperatures for the Northeast. 

Hot summers are great for vacations, but they can 

have adverse effects on shellfish farms. I want to 

Birds on Gear Still a Pressing Issue 

by Robert Rheault, 

ECSGA Executive Director 

Over the past 20 years we have 

seen a proliferation of floating 

gear types for oyster culture. 

With its clear advantages in 

terms of better shellfish survival, 

improved product quality and 

ease of maintenance, floating 

gear is a game-changer. 

The downside is that birds like 

to perch on the gear, and when 

they fly off they invariably leave 

a little something behind. In 

2015 authorities in New York 

took water samples around 

floating gear deployed next to a 

bird sanctuary and found eyepopping 

coliform levels, forcing 

them to close the harvest area. 

When the Interstate Shellfish 

Sanitation Conference (ISSC) 

revised the Aquaculture Chapter 

of the National Shellfish 

Sanitation Program (NSSP) 

in 2019, the Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA) insisted 

on addressing the issue. The new 

NSSP language mandates that 

if your gear may attract birds 

or mammals, you must have an 

operational plan describing the 

measures you will use to deter 

them, so that water quality and 

shellfish sanitation are protected. 

In 2021 eight oyster consumers 

in Rhode Island ended up in the 

hospital with Campylobacter 

illnesses traced to cormorants on 

floating gear. This really caught 

the attention of regulators! 

States reacted in a variety of 

ways, and growers scrambled to 

try anything that might deter the 

birds from landing on their gear. 

Naturally, some approaches 

are more effective than others, 

and birds tend to acclimate to 

various tactics so growers are 

forced to mix it up and usually 

need a number of tools in their 

deterrence toolboxes. The aquaculture 

committee of the ISSC 

was able to develop guidance 

for state regulators, allowing 

them to consider growing-area 

conditions such as tidal current, 

remind all shellfish growers to monitor, follow and 

help police their local health and sanitation rules, 

especially state Vibrio regulations. Keep your shellfish 

cold! Our website has some great information 

on Vibrio risks and effects 1 , and also on what you 

have to do to ensure you’re sending safe shellfish 

into the market. 

Warmer temperatures also can lead to stronger 

and more intense storms. Currently we are seeing 

record-breaking temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico 

and the Atlantic, which has led NOAA to predict 

an above-average hurricane season for 2024. We 

all have seen the devastating impacts these storms 

can have, and the ECSGA has useful guidance to 

help growers prepare for hurricanes and storms in 

our 2023 Best Practices Manual 2 (and especially for 

floating gear 3 ). It’s worth taking a look to refresh 

your memory and get ahead of the curve well before 

bad weather hits. 

I hope you all enjoy the upcoming warm months. 

Just remember to keep your product cold, your farm 

prepared and your crew hydrated (with water, of 

course)! 

Hyperlinks 

1. ecsga.org/vibrio-resources 

2. ecsga.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ECSGA- 

BPs.pdf#page=26 

3. ecsga.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ECSGA- 

BPs.pdf#page=36 

MARTINA MULLER/UNIV. OF R.I. 

Floating gear has been a boon to 

aquaculture, but birds like to perch 

(and poop) on it. To protect water 

quality and shellfish sanitation, new 

regulatory language mandates that 

if your gear may attract birds or 

mammals, you need an operational 

plan describing the measures you’re 

taking to deter them. 

seasonal prevalence and re-submergence 

to purge oysters that 

may have been exposed to bird 

guano. This guidance should be 

—Continued on page 19 

ECSGA Newsletter Issue 2 June 2024 

Page 1

Member Profile: 

Ben Lloyd, Pangea Shellfish and 

Standish Shore Oysters 



It was a treat to catch up with 

Ben Lloyd recently and to hear 

about how his shellfish dealer 

business in Boston’s Seaport 

District has been doing. Ben 

and I go way back to when he 

worked on my farm while he 

was a student at the University 

of Rhode Island. After graduating 

in 1998, Ben left Rhode 

Island and started working for a 

Boston area seafood wholesaler, 

where he learned the ropes of 

buying and selling seafood to 

area restaurants. He remembers 

that at the time, “you could feel 

the oyster industry starting to 

blossom. More farms were being 

permitted and the restaurant 

industry was demanding a larger 

variety of high-quality oysters.” 

In 2001 Ben founded Pangea 

Shellfish Company, where he 

was one of my best customers 

for many years until I sold the 

farm. He recalls that he saw an 

opening to focus on what he 

knew best, setting out to become, 

“the best Boston-based 

shellfish wholesaler [specializing] 

in providing high-quality 

oysters from all over the U.S. 

and Canada. That’s us in a 

nutshell.” 

Through the years Ben and I 

have been able to check in with 

each other briefly when I visited 

his well-stocked booth at 

the Boston Seafood Show. But 

with all the distractions at the 

shows, we never were able have 

in-depth conversations about the 

business. That all changed earlier 

this year when Ben stepped 

up to become the ECSGA’s new 

treasurer. His laid-back affect 

and cheery disposition belie the 

huge number of irons he has 

in the fire, so I was pleasantly 

surprised that he agreed to take 

on the role. 

In addition to overseeing the 

ever-growing dealer operation 

in Boston, Ben has been running 

Standish Shore Oysters in 

Duxbury, Massachusetts, for the 

past 15 years, and is a partner 

in Blish Point Oyster Farm in 

Barnstable. Managing 32 fulltime 

and a dozen part-time employees 

while raising three kids 

and two Saint Bernards keeps 

him busy. 

Pangea focuses almost exclusively 

on shellfish (with some 

urchin and crab thrown in), 

and Ben estimates that oysters 

account for about 75% of 

the business. His approach to 

marketing is uniquely effective: 

while many dealers simply show 

a price list, Ben goes to great 

lengths to describe each of the 

104 varieties he sells, taking the 

time to educate consumers on 

“Oysterology ® ,” with elaborate 

descriptions of flavor, culture 

methods, and even details about 

the growers and their stories. 

Nevertheless, Ben says he 

doesn’t really need to do much 

marketing. “After 23 years in the 

business, we have developed a 

good reputation and now we can 

rely mostly on word-of-mouth 

references. We display most 

years at the Boston Seafood 

Show [Seafood Expo North 

America], which is a great way 

Made in Brunswick, Maine 

info@topmeproducts.com 

www.topmeproducts.com 

KATHY RHODES/AQUATECNICS 

ECSGA Treasurer and Pangea 

Shellfish owner Ben Lloyd (R) and 

account manager Charlie Canty 

preside over an impressive display 

of shellfish at the Seafood Expo 

North America held in Boston in 

March. Pangea’s marketing approach 

relies on educating consumers 

about “Oysterology,” with detailed 

descriptions of flavor, culture 

methods and growers’ stories. 

to reach a larger market. We are 

also on social media, but admittedly, 

we are usually too busy to 

keep up with it,” he said. 

For Ben, the best part of the 

job is dealing with great people. 

“Shellfish growers tend to be 

very humble and down to earth. 

I think growing oysters can do 

that to you!” He can’t imagine 

himself working in a different 

industry, and points out that, 

“growers have to work with 

Mother Nature and she is always 

giving them challenges. Storms, 

rainfall closures, ice and heat are 

always throwing wrenches in 

the supply chain, so matching 

supply and demand is a constant 

balancing act.” 

Ben was one of the early adopters 

in building a wet-storage 

system to help modulate supply 

and demand. He noted that wet 

storage is key to keeping mussels 

and West Coast oysters in 

prime condition for customers. 

Although he says that Pangea’s 

prime mission is to “keep fighting 

the battle each day to provide 

the best oysters in Boston,” 

the team works constantly to 

expand the variety of products 

on offer to keep things fresh for 

customers. “Our motto is: The 

oyster is our World, and we are 

always looking for new highquality 

oysters and shellfish,” 

Ben said. 


ECSGA Newsletter 

Page 2 Issue 2 June 2024


Page 3

Platipus driven-plate 

anchors are being 

used more and more 

with floating gear. 

New Product Spotlight: 

Platipus Anchors 



Since so many growers are 

singing the praises of Platipus 

anchors, I thought we should 

help spread the word. The Platipus 

is a small, percussive-driven, 

tipping-plate, earth-anchor 

system that has been gaining in 

popularity with growers who use 

floating gear. Applying Platipus 

anchors to floating oyster gear 

was pioneered by Frank Milchuck, 

who founded Platipus 

Anchors in 2003 in Raleigh, 

North Carolina. He started out 

installing anchors to stabilize 

retaining walls, trees and slopes 

prone to landslides, and then 

pivoted to manufacturing and 

sales. His crew of 25 employees 

manufactures anchor assemblies 

that are tailored to each customer’s 

needs, so you can order from 

a wide variety of anchor sizes 

and stainless-steel lead lengths 

that will work for your site. 

The anchors are relatively easy 

to install using a small, fourstroke, 

portable pile driver or 

standard hydraulic or pneumatic 

jack hammer to drive the unit 

into the sand/shell layer. Frank 

recommends driving the anchors 

at least 5-8 feet into the hard, 

compacted sand/shell layer that 

is typically covered by a layer 

of thin, soft mud. The key to 

proper installation is anchoring 

your boat or barge with multiple 

anchors (or spuds) so you can 

remain stationary and drive 

the anchor in vertically. As the 

anchor is driven into the bottom, 

the operator adds sections of 

2- to 4-foot drive rods to extend 

DAVE RYAN/CAPE COD OYSTER 

Dave Ryan of Cape Cod Oyster 

Company uses around 60 Platipus 

anchors to hold a 4,600-unit Flip 

Farm array on his 2-acre lease in 

Waquoit Bay on Cape Cod. He was 

pleased to see that the anchors held 

this past winter, even though he rigs 

his lines very tightly and experienced 

a number of “insanely high tides” 

that dragged several units at each 

end of the line underwater. 

ANCHORING SOLUTIONS FOR OYSTER FARMING 


FLOATING BAG & CAGE SYSTEMS 

WHY USE PLATIPUS ANCHORS: 

• Fast and easily installed from a boat or shallow water 

• Can be installed using hand-held tools 

• Once installed the anchor is post-tensioned and immediately serviceable 

• On-site technical and installation support as needed 

• Anchor assemblies made in Raleigh, NC USA 

Page 4 Issue 2 June 2024 

T: (919) 662-0991 E: CIVILS@PLATIPUS.US 

W: WWW.PLATIPUS.US 

the depth. Frank says the system 

can be used to drive anchors in 

waters up to 20 feet deep. While 

the anchor itself is relatively 

small, the holding strength is 

determined by the weight of the 

cone of sediment above the anchor 

that would need to be lifted 

to allow the anchor to be pulled 

out. Similar to an auger anchor, 

you would typically need to 

jet the anchor out with a water 

pump if you wanted to retrieve 

it or reposition it. 

The anchors cost between $40 

and $100, depending on the size 

and the specifications for the 

stainless cable attachment “tendon,” 

while the four-stroke pile 

driver can be purchased for under 

$1,000 or even rented if you 

only need to install a few. The 

chief advantages of the Platipus 

system over helix anchors are 

the speed and ease of installation. 

Of course, each anchor 

system requires proper engineering 

and installation to be effective, 

and several folks I spoke to 

emphasized the importance of a 

vertical installation. 

—Continued on page 8


Page 5

—Continued from page 2 

Pangea Shellfish Co. 

His advice for new growers trying to break 

into the market: “Don’t get too stuck in 

your methods. Things change from year 

to year and it’s always good to experiment 

with techniques and new gear. Try to have a 

consistent supply. It’s tempting to run out of 

oysters before winter, but wholesalers need a 

year-round supply. Don’t get discouraged by 

weak fall sales because the market is flooded 

and nobody wants them! Hang on till spring 

and markets always recover.” With hundreds 

of oyster brands to compete with, Ben maintains 

that quality and strong branding are 

now more important than ever. 

In terms of where the market is headed, Ben 

is noticing more and more consolidation of 

late. “A lot of people are realizing how much 

work goes into growing oysters, and it’s often 

a grind. Smaller farms are getting gobbled up 

to create larger, more efficient companies. 

I think this is inevitable.” 

Ben noted that Pangea wouldn’t 

be where it is today without 

their staff of dedicated employees. 

“Many of our crew 

have been with us for eightplus 

years, and our V.P. Dan 

Light has been with us for 21! 

The wholesale and farm employees 

show up every day, and battle 

through the ups and downs and poor 

weather. They are the backbone of our business.” 

Ben is active in many associations, including 

the Massachusetts Aquaculture Association 

and the ECSGA. He also believes 

it’s important to become involved in local 

politics, especially when farms are located 

in small towns. He explained that Pangea 

takes part in, “quite a bit of charitable work” 

and participates in various fundraisers. The 

company’s “Season of Giving” 

includes fundraising efforts for 

the Massachusetts Aquaculture 

Association in September, 

Breast Cancer Awareness in 

October, Feeding America 

in November, and Toys for 

Tots in December. “It’s been 

very successful for us, and our 

customers really get behind the 

efforts, with some even matching 

our contributions!” he said. 

In addition to all that charitable work, Ben 

has been actively supporting the ECSGA for 

decades because, as he says, “This business 

is tough, and we all need someone fighting 

for our interests. It’s hard to find the time to 

do this effectively on your own. The ECSGA 

does a great job of polling its members on 

their relevant issues and acting on those, 

both regionally and nationally. They are a 

great partner to have in your corner.” 

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New Product Spotlight: 

Ketcham Supply Partners 

with Saeplast and 

Aqua Production Systems 

by Ann Kane Rheault, 

ECSGA Newsletter Editor 

When Bob Ketcham founded Ketcham 

Traps back in 1975, the business primarily 

catered to commercial lobstermen and fishermen, 

selling the first wire-mesh traps, rope 

and wire-coated mesh from their factory and 

store in New Bedford, Massachusetts. 

In 2016 Bob retired and his daughter Heather 

decided to purchase the company, “after a 

lifetime of heated fisheries talk at the dinner 

table.” She is well qualified to run a business 

of this size and scope: she earned a Business 

Management degree from the University of 

Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and pursued 

graduate studies at Babson College and the 

University of California, Berkeley. Heather 

is highly attuned to the needs of the industry 

and says that she gets some of her best ideas 

from visiting farms and talking to growers. 

Since those early days as “a fisherman’s candy 

store” the business has changed its name 

to Ketcham Supply and added an impressive 

array of innovative aquaculture gear to the 

mix. It is now a full-service shellfish-aquaculture 

gear supplier, selling nearly every 

type of equipment growers could possibly 

need: floating cages, mesh bags, vinyl-coated 

wire, ropes, closures and clips, tools, buoys 

and more. And now they’ve added one more 

category to their aquaculture repertoire: 

insulated coolers and recirculating bins from 

Saeplast. 

Heather recognized an industry 

need for insulated coolers that 

make it easier to get oysters 

on ice in order to comply with 

regulatory and best-practice recommendations 

geared towards 

preventing Vibrio outbreaks. She 

also realized that, “recirculating 

bins for wet storage and depuration 

are becoming increasingly 

important to help growers manage inventory 

and sell product when their growing site is 

closed.” 

To that end, Ketcham Supply has partnered 

with Saeplast to distribute their full product 

line 1 in the U.S. The new DWS352 recirculating 

bin (94-gallon capacity) and its predecessors 

the 405 (109-gallon capacity) and 705 

(158-gallon capacity) are made of doublewalled, 

food-grade polyethylene filled with 

polyurethane. The modular design makes for 

easy stacking and includes forklift access. 

AQUA PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 

Aqua Production Systems makes a mobile 

recirculation-chiller system that can hold oysters 

for up to six months. Their shower decks using 

Seaplast DWS352 wet-storage containers can 

be stacked up to four high. APS uses exact 

calculations of the new-water requirements, 

biomass heat transfer, shower-head aeration and 

energy-efficient chilling to keep the water at 2°C. 

The DWS352 multi-function shellfish wetstorage 

system can be stacked four or five 

high under a continuous flow of water raining 

down from above, providing clean water 

and oxygen to the shellfish in all the containers. 

These bins have a larger, standard palletsize 

footprint of 48" x 48" and come with 

lifting handles on each corner. (For more 

details on the DWS352 see the article in the 

April 2021 newsletter 2 ). 

Ketcham Supply is currently working with 

Aqua Production Systems, a Canadian 

company that designs, manufactures, installs 

and maintains live-storage and shower 

systems for seafood processing. APS sells 

a mobile system for use with the Saeplast 

DWS352 wet-storage containers, which it 

says can hold oysters “for up to six months 

using shower-head aeration and energyefficient 

chilling that will keep your water at 

2° Celsius.” APS will also custom-design recirculating 

systems that can maintain water 

temperatures from 0° to 30° C. 

The Saeplast connection 

Saeplast Americas Inc. is a division of Rotovia, 

with headquarters in Dalvik, Iceland, 

and a rotomolding manufacturing plant for 


Sustainable Oyster Farming Systems 

516 US Highway 70 West 

Havelock, NC, 28532 

tel: 1-888-412-8948 

email: sales@submurge.com 

www.submurge.com 

SAEPLAST 

False-bottom grids in the Saeplast 

bins allow mud and dirt to wash 

away from shellfish, and securely 

lock into place along all four sides 

to ensure animals don’t fall through 

into the muck. 


Page 7


Platipus Anchors 

Bubba Frisbee, who runs the 

floating-farm operation for 

Cherrystone Aquafarms, has 

installed hundreds of these anchors 

to secure their thousands 

of floating cages off the Eastern 

Shore of Virginia. He says that 

on a good day he can plant 30- 

40 Platipus anchors. He drives 

them into the sand/shell layer 

until they won’t go any further. 

Bubba estimates that he has engineered 

his system to withstand 

a Category 3 hurricane. 

Dave Ryan, President of Cape 

Cod Oyster Company, recently 

installed about 60 Platipus 

anchors to hold a 4,600-unit Flip 

Farm array on his 2-acre lease 

in Waquoit Bay on Cape Cod, 

Massachusetts, but expects that 

number to reach 5,000 soon. He 

was very pleased to see that the 

anchors held this past winter, 

even though he rigs his lines 

very tightly and experienced a 

number of “insanely high tides” 

that dragged several units at 

each end of the line underwater. 

He dove on them in mid-May 

and reported that, “they look 

brand new after a year in the 

water.” 

Frank says he enjoys working 

with shellfish growers because 

he loves a new challenge and 

every farm he works with is 

unique. I have seen him at 

several trade shows and there is 

always a line of folks looking at 

his gear and asking him questions 

about it. He enjoys talking 

to people about his products, but 

laments that he can never find 

enough help to run his shop, 

which makes it harder to keep 

up with demand. 

Platipus is currently working 

with industry leaders to gather 

more information that will help 

the company determine how 

much capacity is required to 

hold the floating gear in place. 

These real-world studies include 

measuring the tension on the 

lines of gear in various conditions 

and locations. Using this 

data, Platipus will be able to 

provide the necessary anchors 

with an even higher level of confidence 

in their performance. 

For more information on 

Platipus anchors visit platipus. 

us/industry-sectors/otherapplications 

or email the 

company at info@platipus.us 




Ketcham, Saeplast, Aqua 

Production Systems 

the Americas in Saint John, 

New Brunswick, on Canada’s 

East Coast. Saeplast has been 

around since 1984 and now has 

more than 800 employees working 

at 14 operations all over the 

world. Mark Crandall, Saeplast’s 

sales manager for the North 

American territory, explained 

that the company is “the market 

leader in rotationally molded 

plastic products, specializing in 

cold-chain and on-board handling 

processes for all species of 

seafood.” 

Mark said he was excited about 

Saeplast’s new initiative focusing 

on recycling and environmental 

sustainability while honoring its 

commitment to improving seafood 

quality. “We currently are 

the only ones who sell a triplewalled, 

100% recyclable polyethylene 

container using closedcell 

technology. Like our other 

products, the box is durable, 

food-safe and easy to clean and 

repair.” Mark said that Saeplast 

is “discovering and implementing 

a huge swing from PUR 

[polyurethane] to PE [polyethylene] 

throughout the industry, 

in keeping with our mission of 

quality and sustainability over 

and over again.” 

He recognizes that the biggest 

challenge in the vast North 

American market has been a 

reluctance for some industry 

members to come around to 

new and better ways of doing 

things. Mark said it can be a 

struggle to overcome the attitude 

that, “my grandfather did 

it this way, his father and mine 

did it this way, so this is how it 

is done.” Nevertheless, he has 

seen a large movement “starting 

with the farmers and fishermen, 

where they are looking to 

improve catches and yields and 

lower mortalities. We’ve never 

had as much access to education 

and information as we do now 

and folks realize we have some 

of the greatest product in the 

industry and [we] need to start 

showing that to the rest of the 

world.” 

Mark noted that ECSGA members 

are Saeplast’s target demographic 

for the DWS352 wetstorage 

container, and provide a 

major source of information on 

industry processes and needs. 

“Along with Ketcham Supply 

KETCHAM SUPPLY 

Ketcham offers the full Saeplast 

product line, including the 405 

and 705 nesting recirculating bins, 

constructed of double-walled, 

food-grade polyethylene filled with 

polyurethane. 

and a couple of other partners, 

we’ve secured access to everything 

bivalve. The ECSGA is so 

big and has access to so many 

regions, farmers, processes and 

different bodies of water that 

we are working with folks and 

learning more every day,” he 

concluded. 

Aqua Production Systems 

Aqua Production Systems has 

been in business for 12 years, 

with operations in two Canadian 

locations, New Glasgow and 

Woods Harbour, Nova Scotia. 

According to APS Chief Operating 

Officer Wayne Carter, the 

company's 10 employees and 

three contractors play an active 

role in helping to maintain 

customers’ systems long after 

installation. He explained that 

APS provides its customers with 

“daily checklists specific to each 

system, allowing for spot checks 

on vital information to ensure 

the systems are running correctly.” 

The time needed to go through 

the checklist depends on the 

installation, but takes an average 

of 45 minutes a day. “When 

shared with APS personnel 

weekly, this information allows 

for a comprehensive review and 

confirmation that vital equipment 

is operating as it should,” 

Wayne noted. 

APS takes full advantage of 

advances in automation technology 

to “address one of the 


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Page 9

Seafood Traceability 

Summit Takeaways 



I spent the day on May 3 remotely attending 

the Seafood Traceability Summit sponsored 

by Virginia Tech so you didn’t have to. Following 

are some notes I took on the trends, 

innovations and challenges that lie ahead. 

Molluscan shellfish regulated under the National 

Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP) 

are currently exempted from the traceability 

requirements of the Food Safety Modernization 

Act 1 (FSMA), but you may soon find 

your buyers demanding that you adopt all 

the tagging requirements of the rule if you 

want to sell to them. So from a practical 

standpoint, you should talk to your buyers 

now to see what they will want from you. 

Samuels Seafood Company 

Joe Lasprogata, Vice President of Samuels 

Seafood Company, kicked off the summit 

using his company as a case study in why 

traceabilty software systems are needed in 

our industry. Although the main facility is 

headquartered in Philadelphia, Samuels 

also has satellite locations in Miami and 

Las Vegas. They have over 500 employees 

and put 100 trucks on the road every day. 

Samuels offers 5,000 products, and 250 of 

them are perishable, fresh fish and shellfish. 

Most of their products are farmed, and they 

cut fish to order for each customer. Roughly 

40 fish cutters are on the job every day, and 

a customer might be receiving fish from 

several different batches on any given day. 

Every night they unload products from about 

20 trucks dropping off seafood from all over 

the country; the daily receiving log is several 

pages long. 

In 2017 Samuels sold 27 million oysters, 

and they usually have 30-50 varieties of 

oysters in the shellfish cooler. As you can 

imagine, Joe has had to deal with plenty of 

recalls in his time. Before Samuels began 

using traceability software, the recalls were 

a total nightmare, but all that has changed. 

For example, a few months ago Joe was 

notified that a 500-pound load of mussels 

that he had purchased two weeks prior had 

been recalled, and every customer had to be 

notified. He had purchased 2,000 pounds 

of mussels from three different vendors that 

day, and they had been sent out to well over 

100 different customers. Before the traceability 

software, manually figuring out who got 

which mussels might have taken him all day. 

But because he now uses BlueTrace tagging 

and inventory software, it took him about 10 

minutes to identify and notify the 50 or so 

customers who had purchased mussels from 

that specific lot. 

Joe talked about many of the reasons he 

needs sophisticated traceability and inventory-management 

software to maintain his 

sanity. Bar code or QR code scanners greatly 

facilitate the creation of receiving and shipping 

logs. This significantly reduces data-entry 

labor costs and eliminates concerns about 

illegible handwriting or language barriers at 

the receiving dock. The software also helps 

with inventory management, ensuring that 

the first product in is the first product sold. 

Since all perishable products lose value over 

time, anything dealers can do to speed delivery 

is a money saver. 

Facilitating product recalls is an obvious 

benefit, but Joe also appreciates the potential 

to reduce the scope (breadth) of recalls. 

Traceback speed and accuracy should get 

better in the future, which could reduce illnesses 

as well as eliminate the cases where a 

product is falsely implicated in an illness. 

FDA CORE Network 

Adam Friedlander is a policy 

analyst in the Food and Drug 

Administration’s (FDA’s) Office 

of Coordinated Outbreak Response 

and Evaluation (CORE) 

Network who interacts with 

a variety of stakeholders on 

the requirements of the FDA 

Food Traceability Rule. Adam 

described how Rule 204 of the 

Food Safety Modernization Act 

(FSMA) is being implemented. 

The FDA has designated a Food 

Traceability List 2 of dairy, fruit, 

vegetable and seafood products 

considered “high-risk foods,” 

and anyone distributing foods 

on this list will be required to 

implement new traceability 

procedures starting in January 

2026, although they probably 

won’t become elements of routine 

inspections until 2027. 

Even though molluscan shellfish 

are currently exempt from the 

traceability requirements, Adam 

expects that most customers will 

demand that shellfish producers 

and dealers adopt the requirements 

well before then. He suggested 

that anyone with questions 

could check the 179-page 




Samuel W. (Billy) 

Plauché 

billy@plauchecarr.com 

Megan Terrell 

megan@plauchecarr.com 

plauchecarr.com 

Advocates and Counselors 

Representing Shellfish 

Growers Since 1999 

Gulf Coast 

Office 

225.256.4028 

Pacific 

Northwest 

Office 

206.588.4188 


Ketcham, Saeplast, Aqua Production 

Systems 

industry’s pain points: filtration.” Wayne 

explained that they start by “designing a 

filtration system with media equipped to 

do the job, reducing the need for media 

changes to…only once every five to seven 

years. Daily maintenance is automated, with 

backwash cycles performed at 

the intervals necessary to maintain 

water cleanliness.” Each 

installed system also automatically 

transmits information on 

equipment operation and water 

quality back to the company. 

Wayne explained that APS 

joined the ECSGA as an equipment 

supplier because the 

company’s work promoting industry 

best practices and sharing 

knowledge is in keeping with the 

mission of the ECSGA. They 

plan to continue growing their 

business “with a strong focus 

on technology and innovation,” 

while facing the challenges of 

gaining access to all the markets 

that could benefit from their 

products and expertise. Wayne 

added that the best part of his 

job is “watching our customers 

thrive with us. The worst part 

is watching potential customers 

struggle with dead loss when 

there is no need for it.” 

Hyperlinks 

1. ketchamsupply. 

com/2024/04/30/new-productlaunch-seaplast-recirculatingboxes-for-wet-storage-and-depuration 

2. ecsga.org/wp-content/up- 

loads/2021/03/ECSGA_NL_v2- 

21.pdf#page=14 

Prop 65 Could 

Bankrupt You! 

If you ship product to 

California and don't label it 

with a Proposition 65 warning, 

you could be ruined by 

predatory lawyers. They 

have sued several firms 

over regulations that set 

very low tolerances for 

hundreds of chemicals and 

metals present in products 

sold in the state. Oysters 

could easily exceed allowable 

lead and cadmium levels. 

For more details visit: 

ecsga.org/wp-content/ 

uploads/2021/07/ECSGA_ 

NL_v3-21.pdf#page=8 


Page 11




Traceability 

final rule 3 published in the Federal Register, 

or better yet, search for more digestible summaries 

on the web. 

The rules are extensive, and at first glance 

they appear quite daunting. In reality, almost 

all of the larger operations are already doing 

most of what is specified. Everyone in the 

value chain will be required to record Critical 

Tracking Events (CTEs), and Key Data 

Elements (KDEs). CTEs include steps such 

as harvesting, packing, shipping, product 

transformation, comingling and repackaging. 

Each CTE has one or more KDEs that must 

be recorded, such as lot code, location, date, 

temperature, and records like invoices and 

bills of lading. 

One of the new requirements that many will 

have to get used to is that the “first landbased 

receiver” must establish a “lot code” 

that will identify the product source, description 

and harvest date, and will follow the 

product from the first dealer to the end user. 

Adam reiterated that shellfish regulated 

under the NSSP are exempt from the rule, 

but he acknowledged that many buyers will 

start to require lot codes and scannable tags 

to facilitate their receiving and inventory 

management. Once they have to implement 

the Rule for other foods, they will probably 

want to do it across the board. 

The rest of the seminar featured presentations 

from a variety of software and hardware 

purveyors. We heard from BlueTrace, 

Trace Register, Innova, Wholechain and 

HeavyConnect. Each firm has its own pricing 

scheme. For example, while Trace Register 

charges a fee based on the weight of the 

product you ship, BlueTrace charges growers 

a flat fee for printers and tags, but has a different 

pricing structure for dealers who need 

scanners and inventory management features. 

Many companies using these software 

solutions use smartphones for scanning and 

data entry. 

Athough some seafood buyers require that 

sellers use specific software (with proprietary 

tagging and coding), there is a lot of pressure 

across the industry for interoperability, 

so that each system can understand other 

systems’ tags and codes. Most of these programs 

are integrated with billing, and may 

help in the recovery of lost product. 

Benefits 

I think that growers could also see benefits 

from traceability requirements. The FSMA 

Rule requires the first receiver to establish a 

lot code, but for growers who are also dealers, 

it makes sense for them to take care of 

this step. QR codes on the tags will allow 

the grower to convey to the customer the 

story about how the product was produced. 



Page 13

Sorry, But Shellfish Will 

Not Fix Climate Change 



I wish it were true, but unfortunately, shellfish 

are not a carbon sink. We can make 

a lot of great claims about the benefits of 

shellfish, but the scientific evidence does 

not support the conclusion that shellfish are 

reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is 

true that pound for pound, shellfish farming 

has an extremely low greenhouse gas 

footprint. It is also true that shellfish remove 

nitrogen and phosphate from sensitive eutrophic 

coastal estuaries and that shellfish farms 

provide habitat for juvenile fish and enhance 

fish survival and production. We can probably 

also make claims about wave energy 

mitigation and reduction in coastal erosion, 

HAMPTON HISTORY MUSEUM 

This circa 1900 photo shows the massive shell pile 

at the J.S. Darling & Son oyster packing plant that 

loomed as high as six stories over the waterfront 

in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Although the carbon 

in shell can be sequestered for up to tens of 

thousands of years, to be considered a carbon sink 

you would need to remove more carbon than it 

took to make the shell, so it’s not a carbon sink. 

and certainly we can tout the great taste and 

nutritional benefits of bivalves. 

However, we should not be making the claim 

that shellfish farming is going to fix climate 

change. Max Zavell, a fisheries postdoctoral 

fellow at the School for Marine Science and 

Technology at the University of Massachusetts 

Dartmouth, published a paper 1 last fall 

with Odd Lindahl, Ramon Filgueira and 

Sandy Shumway looking at this question. 

He also held a session on the subject at the 

National Shellfisheries Association meeting 

in March. 

The chemistry gets a little wonky so hold on 

tight. First, I should explain the difference 

between a “carbon sink” and “sequestering 

carbon.” A carbon sink refers to the process 

that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and 

ties it up in another form, preferably for 

hundreds or thousands of years. Plants take 

up carbon and turn it into carbohydrates, but 

that carbon is usually released in short order 

when the plant is eaten or decays. 




CDC Improves Its 

Website 



It seems as if every few years we 

see an explosion of news articles 

about flesh-eating bacteria, a 

sensational topic that is irresistible 

to members of the media. 

Invariably these incidents result 

from Vibrio vulnificus illnesses 

caused by wound infections 

contracted while swimming in 

warm, brackish water. V. vulnificus 

infections are incredibly 

rare (156 total cases reported in 

2019) and only 10% are associated 

with eating seafood. But 

notably, V. vulnificus infections 

have a 20% mortality rate in 

immune-compromised patients. 

The go-to source for reporters 

looking for information about 

flesh-eating bacteria is the Centers 

for Disease Control and Prevention 

(CDC) website where, 

until recently, visitors saw that 

an estimated 80,000 vibriosis 

cases occur each year, and that 

oysters are commonly implicated. 

The fact that only 15 or so of 

the extremely rare V. vulnificus 

cases are linked to oysters got 

lost in the confusing language 

that made it hard to distinguish 

the generic term “vibriosis” 

from V. vulnificus infections, 

so just about every media story 

on flesh-eating bacteria showed 

pictures of oysters and cited 

“80,000 cases a year.” 

When three people died of V. 

vulnificus wound infections in 

the summer of 2023 after swimming 

in Long Island Sound, I 

counted more than 47 breathless 

news reports and watched in 

horror as oyster markets in New 

York evaporated. I arranged a 

meeting with CDC press relations 

folks requesting substantive 

changes to their website to clarify 

the rarity of the disease and to 

emphasize that the overwhelming 

majority of V. vulnificus 

cases are wound-related. They 

rejected our suggested edits. On 

our Walk the Hill trip to D.C. in 

March we brought up the issue 

with our congressional colleagues, 

and later began working 

on a letter that representatives 

could send to the CDC urging 

the agency to make changes to 

its website. 

To its credit, in recent months 

the CDC has overhauled its 

Vibrio pages and they are now 

much clearer and easier to 

understand. I’d like to think that 

all our hard work advocating 

for changes to the website paid 

off, but who knows? Maybe the 

revamp had been in the works 

for some time. In any event, the 

improvements are noticeable. 

For example, on the About 

Vibrio 1 page, key points are 

highlighted right off the bat: 

• Vibrio are bacteria that naturally 

live in coastal waters. 

• About a dozen kinds of 

Vibrio can cause people to get an 

infection called vibriosis. 

• People can get vibriosis after 

swallowing Vibrio or getting it in 

a wound. 

• Vibrio infection can be serious. 

Know when to seek medical 

care. 

In addition to the simplified Vibrio 

presentations for members 

of the public and the media, the 

National Outbreak Reporting 

System (NORS) infection and 

outbreak data are now accessible 

online in the NORS Dashboard 2 

and can be downloaded to a 

monster csv file for massaging 

with your favorite spreadsheet 

application. 


CDC/ JANICE H. CARR 

Vibrio vulnificus infections 

are very rare (156 cases 

in 2019) and only 10% are 

linked to eating seafood. 


Page 15




Shellfish Won’t Fix 

Climate Change 

Trees tie up carbon for many 

years until they die and rot or 

get burned. Many are touting 

trees as a carbon sink, but forest 

fires may be challenging that 

concept. 

Sequestration refers to tying up 

carbon in another form for long 

periods of time. Bivalve shell is 

composed of calcium carbonate, 

and the carbon in shell can 

be sequestered for up to tens of 

thousands of years. So why is 

shell not a sink? For shell to be 

considered a sink you would 

need to remove more carbon 

than it took to make the shell. 

Cement ties up tremendous 

amounts of carbon around the 

world for long periods of time, 

but making cement is extremely 

energy-intensive and requires the 

burning of immense amounts 

of fossil fuels, so cement is not a 

carbon sink. 

For starters, shellfish liberate 

a molecule of CO2 for every 

molecule of calcium carbonate 

they create. Shellfish also use 

energy to make shell, and that 

requires respiration, which produces 

CO2. Some argue that the 

CO2 released in respiration is 

immediately taken up by algae, 

which absorb the CO2 and make 

carbohydrates. Depending on 

your assumptions, at best the 

whole process is a net zero, so 

you can’t claim that shellfish are 

reducing atmospheric CO2. 

Removing shell from the ocean 

decreases the alkalinity of the 

seawater, which lowers the solubility 

of CO2 in seawater. It’s 

estimated that roughly a third of 

the CO2 produced by burning 

fossil fuels has dissolved into the 

ocean, but if we lower the alkalinity 

of the ocean, it incrementally 

pushes that CO2 back into 

the atmosphere. I don’t know 

what percentage of shell gets returned 

to the ocean after we eat 

the animals inside, but I suspect 

it is a pretty small fraction. 

Then there is the question of 

scale. Global emissions of CO2 

are approximately 37 gigatons 

per year. Zavell’s estimates of total 

global farmed-shellfish shell 

are on the order of 4-7 million 

tons produced each year. Using 

the higher estimate, and assuming 

there is no CO2 produced 

in making the shell, the CO2 

sequestered in shell represents 

only 0.02% of annual emissions. 

Doubling global production 

would have a negligible impact, 

even under an ideal scenario. It 

has been argued that if we could 

replace 10% of meat consumption 

with shellfish, the impact on 

carbon emissions would be similar 

to pulling 10.8 million cars 

off the road (Ray et al. 2019). 

I am all for that, but it might 

be a hard sell. We have a great 

product with a great story to tell, 

but let’s not stretch the truth by 

making claims that don’t add up. 

Notes 

1. An Estimate of Carbon Storage 

Capabilities from Wild and 

Cultured Shellfish in the Northwest 

Atlantic and Their Potential 

Inclusion in a Carbon Economy. 

Zavell et al. 2024, Journal of 

Shellfish Research 

doi.org/10.2983/035.042.0214 


Traceability 

We have great stories to tell and 

there is solid evidence that this 

increases the value of the product. 

Traceability will also cut 

down on fraud and trademark 

abuse, which will go a long way 

toward improving customer 

trust. 

Challenges 

Some hardships and challenges 

remain for sure. Small producers 

and “first receivers” (who need 

to create lot codes) will have to 

absorb training and software 

costs and will need to adopt 

new protocols. Change is hard! 

Dealers will need to pay for 

scanners, software and training. 

The various traceability software 

companies offered a wide range 

of options and their on-boarding 

time estimates to get up to 

speed varied from 2 hours to 

4-6 weeks. One thing everyone 

agreed on is that it would be 

prudent to engage in traceability 

early so that your concerns are 

addressed and any regulations 

that are developed will fit our 

industry. 

Hyperlinks 

1. www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation-food-and-dietarysupplements/food-safetymodernization-act-fsma 

2. www.fda.gov/food/foodsafety-modernization-act-fsma/ 

food-traceability-list 

3. www.federalregister.gov/ 

documents//2022/11/21/ 

2022-24417/requirementsfor-additional-traceabilityrecords-for-certain-foods 


Page 17


CDC Improves Its Website 

Of course, I still have several beefs with their 

presentation. They say “Most people get vibriosis 

by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, 

particularly oysters.” In fact, wound infections 

account for 35% of all vibriosis infections 

and 65-85% of Vibrio vulnificus infections. 

Only 44% of all foodborne vibriosis 

infections are linked to oysters. 

That is not “most”! 

Although, since many illnesses are linked 

to crab and shrimp and some people refer 

to these as “shellfish,” I guess technically 

they could say “most.” And I suppose that 

since there are more infections from oysters 

than either shrimp or crab, again you could 

technically say “particularly oysters,” but 

oysters are implicated in fewer than half of 

foodborne infections so I am not happy that 

we get special treatment. Since oysters are 

responsible for less than half of foodborne 

vibriosis infections (and only 10% of V. vulnificus 

infections) do they really deserve their 

own special page 3 that leads with, “You can 

get very sick from eating raw oysters”? 

The CDC page on oysters and vibriosis still 

talks about amputations and 20% mortality 

without mentioning how rarely this disease 

is caused by oysters. We are talking about 

15 cases a year tied to seafood consumption! 

I should be pleased that we have gotten 

the CDC to make some changes, but we 

know there will be more flesh-eating bacteria 

deaths next summer, and when they are 

wound-related (as the vast majority are) it 

would be nice if the press didn’t immediately 

throw oysters under the bus. 

If you'd like more details on this issue and 

the specific edits we are requesting, visit 

ECSGA.org and take a look at my short 

webinar 4 . We also have a fact sheet 5 on flesheating 

bacteria. Remember, the next time 

you get cornered by a reporter, your response 

should be short and sweet: “Our shellfish are 

safe, but if you are immune compromised 

you should be careful about swimming in 

warm seawater if you have a scratch or a 

cut.” Don’t get trapped in a long conversation 

because the key points you want to 

make will likely get lost. 

Hyperlinks 

1. www.cdc.gov/vibrio/about 

2. wwwn.cdc.gov/norsdashboard 

3. www.cdc.gov/vibrio/prevention/vibrioand-oysters.html 

4. ecsga.org/vibrio-resources/#CDCdestroysmarkets 

5. ecsga.org/vibrio-resources/#flesh-eating 

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Page 18 Issue 2 June 2024 

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Birds on Gear a Problem 

formally accepted by the FDA in 

a few months. 

I headed up two sessions at the 

National Shellfisheries Association 

annual meeting in March, 

and posted the notes from those 

sessions 1 and a brief webinar 2 on 

shellfish sanitation and birds to 

the ECSGA website. 

This spring the ISSC Executive 

Board agreed to establish a committee 

to conduct a literature 

review, and to hold a workshop 

on guano remediation. One of 

the key challenges: although 

sea birds excrete high levels of 

coliform-indicator bacteria, they 

only rarely carry human pathogens. 

Nevertheless, high coliform 

levels can force the closure 

of harvest areas even though the 

risk of human illness may be 

relatively low. 

In April the Environmental 

Protection Agency published a 

283-page document highlighting 

how the presence of fecal-coliform-indicator 

bacteria is a poor 

predictor of risk when waters 

are primarily contaminated with 

fecal material from non-human 

animals (such as dogs, livestock 

or wild birds). These Technical 

Support Materials 3 are posted on 

the ECSGA website and provide 

the foundation for discussions 

on how to conduct a risk analysis 

on bird waste. The hope is 

that with continued research, we 

can avoid unnecessary closures 

of harvest areas impacted by 

nearby birds. 

While the risk of human illness 

may be low, it is clearly not 

negligible. Growers should do 

everything possible to deter birds 

from landing on their gear, and 

plenty of new ideas and refinements 

are being developed and 

evaluated. At minimum, guano 

on food is a bad look, but it 

can be catastrophic if it results 

in closing growing areas. Stay 

tuned for more developments on 

this issue. 

Hyperlinks 

1. ecsga.org/bird-interactions/ 

#nsa-notes-11 

Covering Your Operation From Ship-to-Shore and Shore-to-Door 

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Page 19

ECSGA Dues Categories 

Growers, dealers and equipment suppliers enjoy full voting rights. 

(If you are both a grower and a dealer simply ask yourself where 

most of your revenue comes from.) If you don’t fall into one of 

these industry categories please consider joining as a non-voting 

associate member. 

Member Type Gross Annual Sales Dues 

Grower $0 to 50,000 $100 

Grower $50,000 to $100,000 $200 

Grower $100,000 to 300,000 $500 

Grower $300,000 to 1 million $1,000 

Grower $1 million to $3 million $2,000 

Grower over $3 million $3,000 

Shellfish Dealers and 

Equipment Suppliers 

$250 

Restaurant Ally $100 

Non-voting 

Associate 

$50 

Because ECSGA is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade organization, a 

portion of your membership dues may be tax deductible as a 

business expense; please contact us for details. 

You can pay online using PayPal or your credit card on our website 

ECSGA.org or mail this form with your check to: 

ECSGA, 111 Myrtle St., New Bedford, MA 02740 

Name ______________________________________________ 

Company ___________________________________________ 

Street Address ______________________________________ 

City, State, Zip ______________________________________ 

Email ______________________________________________ 

Phone _____________________________________________ 

Member Type and Level*______________________________ 

* Rest assured, your sales information will be closely 

guarded and will not be shared! 

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East Coast Shellfish Growers Association June 2024 Newsletter

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