Consider the Gulf Oyster

Published on Thursday, June 24, 2010, by James Norton / Edit Post

Sneer all you want at Red Lobster (Lord knows I've done it), but the fact that the massive seafood chain is booting oysters from its menu is nothing short of a disastrous sign vis-à-vis the health of the national seafood industry after the BP spill. The menu change comes from the shutdown of Red Lobster's supplier, AmeriPure. DailyFinance reports:

"The big loser in this mess is AmeriPure. The $20 million company, which had to rebuild after being devastated  by Hurricane Katrina, now finds itself crippled by BP's oil spill. In addition to damaging many oyster beds, the oil company has undermined the seafood industry by monopolizing the available fishermen."

By paying inflated wages for fishing boat crews to man oil booms, BP has hired on the very people who would otherwise be struggling to re-establish the Gulf fishing industry. You can't really blame BP for paying well or  the fishermen for pursuing a higher (and guaranteed) wage, but the overall impact is still not fantastic for a badly wounded industry.

AmeriPure's shutdown is also a particular blow to the Gulf specifically. The company put a great deal of effort into developing a proprietary method of ensuring the safety of its Gulf oysters, helping pave their way for adoption by seafood restaurants otherwise leery of the warm-water oysters' safety track record, which is poor when compared to that of their cold-water cousins.

Image source: CHOW.com

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  • Do you think the oysters from Apalachicola are still good? safe? have they been affected by the BP spill?

  • It is unfortunate that more people have been put out of work, but the AmeriPure process rendered a perfectly good oyster bland and tasteless. Their web site said differently, but I had some AmeriPures down in Punta Gorda and somewhere here in Tampa and they were awful.

    I grew up near Apalachicola and have been eating Apalach oysters most of my life. I know what a good oyster tastes like and...+READ

    It is unfortunate that more people have been put out of work, but the AmeriPure process rendered a perfectly good oyster bland and tasteless. Their web site said differently, but I had some AmeriPures down in Punta Gorda and somewhere here in Tampa and they were awful.

    I grew up near Apalachicola and have been eating Apalach oysters most of my life. I know what a good oyster tastes like and AmeriPures weren't it.

    I just got back from a trip to the Florida Panhandle and while in Apalachicola and Panama City Beach I stuffed myself with just harvested, fresh oysters. They were salty and delicious and had never seen the inside of the AmeriPure plant, and I feel fine.-COLLAPSE