Dedicated workers trying to revive Florida oyster industry

EVERGLADES, Fla. —

Could a story change the way you think about Gulf oysters? The men behind Everglades Oysters hope so.

"Oysters are miraculous, and there's a market down here for oysters that has never been done. A massive opportunity to bring local oysters here to South Florida. There's a lot of misconceptions out there. I think what we really want to get across is that this is a safe oyster to eat and that they are a beautiful, manicured oyster," said Joshua Wilkie, the co-founder of Everglades Oysters.

People may tend to associate Gulf Coast oysters with being muddier and larger in size, and Everglades Oysters wants to change that misconception.

"They are extremely different. These oysters that we grow never touch the bottom. They're grown in a floating cage system called off-bottom aquaculture, so these oysters never touch the dirt, never get muddy. No critters are in there. No crabs and so, yeah, we have an oyster that's really a premium oyster that we bring in the market," Wilkie said.

Gulf Coast News is getting a first-hand look at what it takes to grow oysters to compete with the typical East and West coast oysters right out of the half shell. The team Everglades Oysters is a Florida-based oyster farm located deep in the Ten Thousand Islands, trying to revive the Florida oyster industry and get Florida oysters back onto menus across our state.

"It is briny upfront. It's got — we like to think of it as like a sweet coconut umami finish. We have a really delicious profile with these oysters, but they are not chewy. They're, you know, very light and delicious to eat," Wilkie said.

And they grow faster, which this crew says can help keep up with the demand.

Fabio Galarce, the founder of Everglades Oysters, said, "They prefer warm water. They hibernate and go to sleep. They don't even filter water in the cold. So that's the biggest difference is we grow them six times faster."

They are growing and making a difference here on our Gulf Coast every day.

"I like to say the oyster is a miraculous, sustainable protein. It's one of the only things I can think of that. The more you produce, the more you consume, the more net positive you do for the environment. Each individual oyster, think of that as like a bathtub. So right now our farm is filtering millions of gallons of water a day," Galarce said.

One adult oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water per day, so these oysters are helping our waterways. And everything they do on the water is timed — timed when they head out on the water, timing of growth and watching so barnacles don't grow too far here, and temperatures are a big key factor.

"Florida has really strict time temperature controls, and Florida oyster farm production has gone up, Florida farmed oyster consumption has gone up, and vibrio cases have gone down. And that's really what we're focused on. We actually have a wholesale distribution side of the business, and then we also can retail, so we have been doing what we call consumer wholesale, where we sell basically cases to the public, and that's been going great. So yeah, once was once the story here is if someone wants oysters they can reach out," Galarce said.

It's safe to say that Fabio's trying to change the oyster game right here on our Gulf Coast.

"We are absolutely trying to change the oyster game. We're trying to save the Gulf Oyster. And actually, that's what people need to know — 90% of the wild oyster reefs in the Gulf are functionally extinct. They're all dead. And the only way to save them is to grow. Oysters consume the protein locally and return those shells to the water," Galarce said.

"This year, we're shooting for over 2 million oysters that we're going to plant and get to market by the end of the year, early 2027, and long term, we want to produce 50 to 75 million oysters a year," Galarce said.

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