Slurping up that salty white Bluff gold

Oysters are sorted by size for packaging in to containers at Barnes Oysters in Invercargill. Picture / Simon Baker

A man in a suit is juggling a smart leather briefcase and a small polystyrene box as he climbs off the small plane that brought him to Christchurch from Invercargill.

He is excitedly carrying a precious cargo, and the airline staff are on to him straight away.

"Let me guess. Oysters?" says the flight attendant.

She is quite correct. The man had rearranged a meeting of 12 people that should have been held in Dunedin, moving the venue to Invercargill just so he could buy several dozen Bluff oysters fresh from the factory where they are opened.

It is not an unusual story. Bluff oysters are considered the creme de la creme of New Zealand oysters and the short season sends connoisseurs into a frenzy - even more intense when bad weather or bonamia, a mature oyster's worst bacterial enemy, limits supplies.

In 2000, 2001 and 2002 the seasons were terrible, mainly because of bonamia.

A survey found that the number of oysters in Foveaux Strait - usually about two billion - had halved, forcing the industry and the Ministry of Fisheries to have a rethink. Two years ago the licensed quota-holders agreed to cut their catch limits from 14.95 million to 7.5 million. That has meant less income for the hundreds of people involved in Southland's $12 million dollar oyster industry, but the benefits of the 2003 decision are beginning to show. Industry leaders are quietly confident that in another two years or so they will be able to return to their original catch limits.

The Bluff oyster is, as Barnes Oyster Company manager Graeme Wright puts it, "the perfect product. You don't have to advertise, you will always sell all of them, and you can pretty much name your price. They are grey and white salty gold."

 

At Wright's Invercargill factory, 16 openers rapidly and expertly manipulate the shells from 7.30am to 4pm. He calls them oyster openers - shuckers is apparently "an Auckland word".

It is an exceptionally skilled trade. The oyster must not arrive on the grading table with nicks or cuts and the openers must get through the entire catch brought into the factory - 7000 shells each a day. Each opener has a different style and their knives are twisted into the shape that best suits them. The men are paid for each oyster, and the day's tally is recorded by an automatic counting system attached to the shute down which the oysters slide into a collection bowl.

This is not a trade that attracts young workers. Most of the men lined up at Barnes' factory this season have been coming back season after season, and many are over 60.

Neil Bradshaw, at 71, is the oldest.

Short-sleeved and tattooed, he's been working at Barnes since 1957.

An hour and a bit into the day his counter reads 1107. It's about average.

"It's a great job," he says.

"Love oysters. Better than viagra, you know."

The factory foreman, Jim Burke, is the world record holder for opening the most oysters in an hour, 1719. He claimed the title in 1963, a day before he turned 23.
That's opening 28 oysters a minute for an hour solid. And all were perfect, with no nicks or cuts.

Warren Conway, as chairman of the Bluff Oyster Management Company, has the job of ensuring the oyster trade stays a good business for Southland.

The company represents the quota-holders in the Foveaux Strait Dredge Oyster Fishery group. There are 23 licences available to dredge for Bluff oysters although some companies hold more than one.

Halving the catch limit was a "step in the right direction" and Conway says it is obviously helping rejuvenate the oyster beds.

Though moves to double the catch limit back to 14 million are still a year or so away, there are still plenty for oyster lovers to enjoy.

This weekend thousands of people will be doing just that at the 15th annual Bluff Oyster and Southland Seafood Festival.

For those who cannot make it to the southern tip of the country, Bluff oysters are on sale in most supermarkets and fish and chip shops, the price depending on how far away from Bluff you live. Although Southlanders - and savvy Christchurch businessmen - are picking them up for $16 a dozen, Aucklanders are looking at $19 or $20.

The season ends on August 31.