A conversation with John Holmyard, founder and managing director of Offshore Shellfish, 21st century mussel farming: guilt-free food that helps regenerate marine biodiversity and captures carbon. We talk about protein. With a growing population, we need more and more of it. So, what is the lowest impact and positive impact protein source we can grow? A deep dive into the largest offshore mussel farm in Europe, where they grow large amounts of mussels by grazing large number of plankton that naturally flows by. And, in case you are wondering, there is so much plankton around because we depleted most of the fish stocks that used to eat a lot of it.
We learn all about how to build the largest mussel farm in the UK and how to deal with regulators who have no idea what shellfish farming even means (they think you hunt mussels in the wild). We explore why mussels are such a potential crop to grow, and they can even restore natural mussel reefs, which used to be present all around the North Sea until we started bottom-trawling. And why are politics fundamental to the business when all of your crop goes fresh to mainland Europe?
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This episode is part of the Regenerative Aquaculture series, supported by The Nest, a family office dedicated to building a more resilient food system through supporting natural solutions and innovative technologies that change the way we produce food.
WHY MUSSELS ARE SUCH A GREAT CROP TO GROW FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH
The farm’s impact on the local ecosystem is positive, with the creation of a reef underneath the ropes. John emphasizes Offshore Shellfish’s commitment to food safety, with regular testing for E. coli and algal toxins.
”So, the evidence we’ve got now is that, yes, things are recovering. We look at the biodiversity amongst our range of other things; we see how the biodiversity has changed each year. And to begin with, it was gradually changing. It was a gradual increase, which is good. But we also look at the biodiversity traits. So, it’s not just the individual species. It’s the feeding traits, whether the scavengers or filter feeders or whatever else. And seeing how that’s changed over the years, it does change because there’s a constant rain of food down to the seabed. But the general opinion is that it’s all a very good thing.” John Holmyard
”It’s looking how the farm is creating or recreating a reef underneath the mussel route. Some of the mussels fall off the ropes. I’d love it if they didn’t, because I’m trying to sell them, but some of them will always fall off. That’s a natural thing. […] So what they’ve seen over the past year with some very high-definition sonar is there’s actually a rebuilding of a reef underneath each of the ropes.” John Holmyard
”Every load that we send into Holland is tested for E. coli, another bacteria, and in five years, we’ve never failed a test. […] But so far, they’ve always been clean. There is another aspect to food safety with mussels or any shellfish: at certain times of the year in certain areas, you get naturally occurring algal toxins. For us, that period runs from about May till about now (September), so we test every week for those, and if we get any sort of positive results, then we’ll test much more often. We’ll test every batch. We haven’t had any problems with algal toxins for three years.” John Holmyard
HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT SPOT TO GROW THEM
John points out that you need to find an area where the water is not just clean but is recognized as clean.
”So, there’s got to be enough food in the water, and the rate at which they feed is partly dependent on how much food is in the water but also on the temperature. The other considerations are also practical considerations. Now, although, sorry, Scotland, the west coast of Scotland, which is where most of the firemen went on, is a big place. It’s made out of lots and lots of small spaces. So, if you want to use a boat in one lock, it means you can’t then go and use it in the next lock or the next lock because you might be restricted by weather to get there and so on. So, we couldn’t really grow that much bigger where we were in Scotland, and I recognized that we needed a much bigger space. And obviously, going offshore was a possible way of solving that. I mean, it said that nobody else is doing it offshore, so we didn’t quite know how to solve it. But I think it was bright enough to understand that if you’re going offshore, then probably the West of Scotland is not the first place you choose.” John Holmyard
WHY JOHN MOVED FROM SCOTLAND TO DEVON
The decision to leave Scotland and establish a larger farm in Lyme Bay addressed the need for a bigger market in Northern Europe.
”I guess I had a choice of sticking the farm up the Humber estuary, which is very fertile, or putting in the South Devon. […] But also Lyme Bay was pretty much the best area we could come up with in terms of the configuration of the seabed, the way the currents moved, the way the currents moved in comparison to the way the wind moved, the distance from the harbour, and the access to the road network. There were a lot of things that came into play, and we eventually settled on Lyme Bay, and then we went through the process of applying for permission to do it.” John Holmyard
”This brings us to the point where I decided to leave Scotland in 2006. I think we sold a farm in Scotland because I recognized we needed to get a lot bigger if we were to tackle the main market. And the main market is Northern Europe.” John Holmyard
WHY FISHERMEN ARE OFTEN SCEPTICAL AND THEN BECOME FANS OF THE MUSSEL FARMS
John explains the initial resistance from local fishermen.
”I was hoping to see all this; it’s been very gratifying to see that things have gone from being a fairly unproductive bit of seabed now, though some of the fishermen originally were quite anti what we were doing, not necessarily because they wanted that bit of ground, but they just saw it as a sort of foot in the door, and before they knew it, the whole bay would be covered in mussel farms. It’s not the case at all, but some of those fishermen now think we are the best thing since sliced bread.” John Holmyard
”There are fishermen there that are very happy to fish around the edge of the farm and catch whatever is sort of escaping from the farm. And there are some you still try fishing on the farm, although that’s now illegal; that’s a bit of a sore point, but sometimes they damage our gear, and it’s not something we welcome. It’s something to put up with.” John Holmyard
WHY MUSSELS ARE MOSTLY SOLD LIVE INTO THE EU
The farm supplies 95% of its production to the Netherlands, with the remaining 5% to Belgium, France, and Germany.
‘We would love to be able to sell some more in the UK. But as I said, the UK market is not very big, and it’s fairly price sensitive. [..] If you want to buy fresh shellfish, you’ve got to go to a fishmonger. Virtually all the fishmongers are in supermarkets, and since COVID, virtually all the fresh fish caterers in supermarkets have been shot.” John Holmyard
”So, the EU is our market. We never really considered that we’re going to be selling much in the UK, and we don’t. So, we’ve always built the farm to supply the EU, and we do it very well. The size of the farm area that we’re permitted for should grow somewhere between 10 and 12,000 tons. […] We know what the regulations are for exporting or importing mussels from outside of the EU into the EU because we used to be in the EU. So, we know what the regulations are. And the regulations are that you can only import stuff into the EU if it comes from Class A water.” John Holmyard
”There’s expansion room there should we start targeting the UK. But I’m an old merchant, wise enough to know that building a market can take just as long as building a farm, and that’s been the case in Europe.” John Holmyard
OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED
Koen and John also talked about:
- How to get regulators on board and why it is difficult (they mostly don’t know)
- How mussels are regenerating the seabed regrowing the mussel reefs
- What are the differences between the different methodes to grow mussels
- The importance of educating consumers about the sustainability and health benefits of mussels
- The potential for investment in the mussel farming industry
- The potential for replicating the farm model in other suitable locations
LINKS:
LINKED INTERVIEWS:
- Regenerative Aquaculture series
- Georg Baunach – More than half of the fish you eat is farmed: basics, potential and risks of investing in aquaculture
- Sowmya Balendiran – How to turn seaweed farming into an industry? Start by farming 1000 football fields of tropical seaweed in Indonesia
- Alf Gøran Knutsen – The good, bad opportunities of the multi million dollar salmon industry, from shooting lasers under water to feed
- Yanik Nyberg – Are saltwater plants grown on tens of millions ha of abandoned, drained salt marshes going to be the livestock feed of the future?
- Aaron Huang – How ranching (and eating) of millions of zombie sea urchins could restore the massive kelp forests of the U.S. Pacific West Coast
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.