Oysters are a delicacy enjoyed by many around the world but it’s not something many of us would eat on a regular basis because it’s expensive.
For such a small amount of flesh, each oyster costs between $1 — $3 if you eat it at a restaurant.
However, oysters weren’t always this expensive. In fact, there was a time when oysters were handed out for free as bar snacks.
Let’s take a look at history to understand how oysters become the delicacy we love today and maybe explain its modern-day price tag?
Table of Contents
What is an oyster?
This is an oyster.
Oysters are salt water bivalve mollusks that are rich in minerals. Oysters have plump inner flesh and irregularly shaped outer shells.
Oysters have gills and they eat algae. For this reason, the ideal environment for oysters is the sea.
History of oysters
Oysters have been around for 300 million years. Humans have been eating oysters for centuries.
The first person to cultivate oysters was Sergius Orata. Sergius was a Roman engineer who also invented underfloor heating.
Starting in the 19th century, oyster sales boomed and you can find oysters being sold as street food across cities such as London, New York, and Paris.
Oysters were considered cheap snacks at the time. In fact, New York was eating 1 million oysters every day in the 1900s.
However, industrialization and dredging made overfishing inevitable.
Another issue that took form was sewage water being dumped in water where oysters were being grown. Typhoid and other diseases soon followed.
This led to the closure of many oyster beds.
Other problems such as harsh winter and diseases among oysters killed off many oyster species.
The use of child labor kept the price down in the 1900s and as child labor law came into view, oyster farmers had to rely on adult labor which pushed the price up.
How are oysters farmed?
It takes 2 — 3 years for oysters to mature. They start out so small that you’d need a microscope to see them.
Farmers may tweak the temperature of the water to encourage the spawning of oysters. Eggs and sperms are released directly into the water where they form into larvae.
Farmers would keep the larvae in flasks where they eat food and grow bigger.
Once the oysters have grown large enough (thumbnail size), they’re put into cages and then into the sea.
After 2–3 years, the oysters are retrieved and taken to be depilated. During depilation, the oysters are cleaned thoroughly. It’s also at this stage that oysters are checked by hand individually.
Workers would tap the oysters together listening for any defects. Any dead oyster is thrown out.
If the oysters pass the sound test, they’re placed in containers ready to be shipped out to customers.
What makes oysters so expensive?
There are several reasons that make oysters so expensive including:
- Polluted water
- Long time to maturity
- Short shelf life
- Long-distance trade
- Increased demand
1. Polluted water
Oysters are eaten raw so the bodies of water they’re grown in can affect their taste and safety quite a bit.
If the water isn’t clean the oysters wouldn’t be clean.
Oysters grown in sewage-contaminated waters can cause typhoid and other diseases.
Polluted water caused the closure of many sea beds throughout the last 200 years.
With each closure, there are fewer oysters available for safe consumption so the price rises.
2. Long time to maturity
Oysters take a long time to grow. Each oyster takes 2–3 years to be ready for consumption.
They start out microscopically small and when they are ready for consumption, they can fit snuggly on your hand.
Oysters are grown in hackeries until they are the size of your thumbnail by which point they are transported into the sea.
They’ll sit in specially designed containers in the sea for years before they are taken back onto dry land.
This process of oyster farming is labor-intensive and requires lots of endurance.
Oysters unlike other types of food such as eggs where they could be quickly produced require years of hard work before harvest all the more reasons why they are so expensive.
3. Short shelf life
Oysters have a short shelf life of just 9 days from the moment they emerged out of the water.
These oysters have to be quickly cleaned and packaged so they can get to the customers on time.
Oysters are kept alive for as long as possible during those 9 days before being shucked (killed) and served.
If the oysters die before they reach the restaurant, their freshness would certainly drop and their taste would certainly change as well.
The short shelf life of oysters makes them that much more delicate. It requires lots of preparation before it reached your plate. If anything goes wrong the oysters have to be thrown out.
For this reason, oysters are expensive as it requires lots of people working together quickly to safely make it to you.
4. Long-distance trade
Oysters are shipped all over the world.
There are relatively few oyster farms in the world. Any oysters that are produced, are highly sought after by restaurants and markets all over.
To transport the oysters safely by air requires lots of fuel, workers, and money.
Domestic oysters may be cheaper but this isn’t accessible to everyone as some places don’t have oyster farms.
These places rely on oysters from other parts of the world to satisfy their residents. You may notice oysters popping up on menus everywhere despite no oyster farms nearby, it’s all a carefully arranged trade system that takes manpower and money to achieve.
The long distance that oysters travel to reach you is another reason why oysters are so expensive.
5. Increase demand
The demand for oysters dropped temporarily during the lockdown since most restaurants were closed.
However, now that everything is open again, the demand has returned. Moreover, the demand has also been increasing.
One reason is due to social media marketing. Seeing influencers eat oysters on your screen will cause you to crave oysters. Is that surprising?
Oysters, being associated with luxury is another reason why the demand isn’t seeing a drop.
All this demand for oysters is why we aren’t seeing a drop in its price tag anytime soon.
Final thought
Are you a fan of oysters? If you are like most people, a bit of oyster is always good.
Knowing this, perhaps it’ll make us that much more appreciative of all the work that goes into making oysters possible for us year-round in almost every corner of the globe.
