Elizabeth Robinson enters a cool, damp room with fluorescent lights and dozens of large plastic bags holding liquid ranging from pastel yellow to dark rust.

It’s not the typical image associated with Louisiana’s oyster industry. But the lab and its process of growing algae play a key role in the nascent off-bottom oyster farming industry that’s been expanding on and around Grand Isle over the past few years.

Oysters feed on algae, explained Robinson. Every year, the lab uses its own to produce hundreds of millions of oyster larvae, which grow into small “seed oysters.”

The hatchery provides most of its young oysters to the state, which uses them for restoration, but sometimes gives its two-millimeter seeds to nearby oyster farmers. Some of those oyster growers are part of a new push to diversify the way oysters are produced in Louisiana, using off-bottom techniques in addition to more traditional methods. 

Last year, one of the oyster farmers in Grand Isle bought some of the seeds for his farm. They grew for months inside hundreds of floating cages, routinely flipped and shaken. Months later, the farmer posted on social media that those oysters were ready for market and on their way to New Orleans restaurants. 

“He posted on Instagram and that was the only way I knew about it,” Robinson said. “It was cool to see that transition.”

Their journey from the Grand Isle lab to a New Orleans restaurant is typical for farmed Louisiana oysters. Unlike traditional oysters grown on the seabed, off-bottom oysters grow in rows of floating cages until they reach maturity.

They are gaining traction, and state and local officials are continuing to expand the industry, especially in the once-flourishing oyster town of Grand Isle.

Seafood experts and Louisiana leaders tout off-bottom growing as an environmentally adaptable way to produce fresh oysters year-round while attracting a wider range of farmers to the industry — from corporate retirees to 30-something New Englanders to locals following their family tradition.

“It’s not just an oyster on the table, on a menu,” said Jason Pitre, who farms the same lease where his grandfather once grew wild oysters. “It’s part of our identity, our legacy.”

A member of the United Houma Nation, Pitre stressed how growing oysters allows him to honor his heritage while taking up a new, adaptive approach to his grandfather’s vocation. Hurricanes, coastal erosion and the 2010 BP oil spill have rendered the traditional method untenable in the area. But off-bottom oystering presents a hopeful alternative.

“The coast is always changing — it always has changed,” Pitre said. “It’s finding ways to make sure that we don’t lose that identity.”

‘Back on the map’

Four years after Hurricane Ida devastated Grand Isle, officials are continuing to expand the island’s oyster farming industry through a new state grant awarded to the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission. The commission launched an effort in April to market the island’s off-bottom oysters as a specialty product dubbed “Grand Isle Jewels.”

The $140,000 grant came from the Louisiana Economic Development to create programs that assist the state’s seafood industry.

“What we’re going to celebrate today is going to put Grand Isle back on the map as the oyster capital of the world,” said Jerry Bologna, JEDCO executive director, at the unveiling of the new oyster brand.

The name pays homage to both Grand Isle’s pirate history and to Jules Melancon, an oyster harvester from Bayou Lafourche who became the first in the state to take up the off-bottom method for commercial use in 2012. 

For over 150 years, Grand Isle boasted a thriving wild oyster industry, but by the 1980s and early 1990s, a changing seafloor habitat and poor economics led the industry to disappear, Louisiana Sea Grant scholar Earl Melancon said. In 2021, Hurricane Ida scoured the last remaining wild oyster habitat around the island.

“When people would come down here and visit, they were always thinking in terms of shrimping or crab, but by the ’90s, oysters were off of their mind,” Melancon said.

As the traditional oyster industry faded, the off-bottom method gained traction with the help of state and federal dollars. In 2020, Louisiana Sea Grant allocated $1.8 million to help off-bottom oyster farmers. Ida destroyed one of the newly established aquaculture parks on the island, but the method bounced back — and grew — after the storm.

All 16 plots on the 28-acre park in Grand Isle are currently leased — and the Grand Isle Port Commission plans to double its size by the end of the year. Across the state, there are two other oyster farming parks in the Calcasieu and Terrebonne basins. These parks make it easier for farmers to set up their operations, but independent oyster growers, like Pitre, also use their own leases.

How does oyster farming work?

The off-bottom method is typical in areas around the East and West coasts, but it only cropped up locally over the past decade as a specialty product. The oysters, which tend to be smaller and cleaner, have gained popularity around New Orleans at local restaurants, food pop-ups and at Jazz Fest. 

The cages can be moved around, protecting the oysters from both predators and natural disasters. Beyond filling po-boys and raw bars, oysters also offer a range of environmental benefits, including sequestering carbon through a process called calcification and cleaning pollutants.

Still, the off-bottom method poses challenges. While it results in a premium price, it also requires lots of additional work, Melancon said. The alternative method probably doesn’t contribute more than 1% or 2% of total oyster production in the state, Melancon said.

“This is a way to help diversify the oyster industry, but it’s not going to be a replacement,” he said. “The king in Louisiana is the traditional oyster.”

From seed to sale

Beyond opening up new leases and doubling acreage at the aquaculture park, the Grand Isle Port Commission is also opening a processing facility on the island, where the oysters are cleaned, cooled and prepared for market. The entire farmed oyster life cycle — from seed to sale — will be able to take place on the island by the end of the year.

On a warm afternoon in May, Nathan Herring, one of the 11 Grand Isle oyster farmers, sorts baby oyster shells into three buckets using a homemade sieve resembling a pasta strainer. He then divides the tiny shellfish by size — the largest being 9 millimeters, about the size of extra-long grain rice. Behind Herring are a series of long plastic tubes, where even smaller oyster seeds are flushed with water straight from the bay.

Funded by Louisiana Sea Grant after Hurricane Ida, Herring, 36, built his oyster nursery in 2023 on the edge of the water. He buys oyster seed and then grows them until the juvenile oysters are ready to be moved to cages. He sells to other farmers but can also use the seed for his own 1-acre farm on the island.

“The idea was if I can sell enough of these to cover the cost, then I’m basically getting free seed, but also, I’m ensuring that I’m getting good seed,” he said.

Herring’s plot generates around 3,000 to 4,000 oysters per week, and he sells a “relatively small oyster” to mostly higher-end restaurants in New Orleans. The Mississippi native’s Bright Side Oyster product is typical for the off-bottom industry due to the oysters’ miniature stature compared to the traditional large one.

“The smaller ones are great for people who aren’t already oyster people because you don’t have to chew this huge oyster,” Herring said. “But I also think the smaller ones hold the flavor a little more. It’s a bit more concentrated.”

But not all of the off-bottom oysters are small, boutique oysters sold at New Orleans raw bars.

Kirk Curole, 62, started selling his oysters after retiring from the oil and gas industry. He sells directly to customers, mostly in Lafourche Parish, advertising on social media at a price of $1 each. Unlike some of his peers, Curole specializes in a variety of sizes, including shells that look more like the traditional wild ones than the daintier varieties.

This year, he only bought “triploid” seeds, which means that when the oysters grow, they cannot reproduce. This shields them from the milky texture that some traditional oysters can get when they spawn in the summer. By contrast, Curole’s oysters boast a soft-boiled egg texture, he said.

On the day of the “Grand Isle Jewel” launch, Curole hopped into 4 feet of water, surrounded by the 300 cages holding his growing oysters. Every week, he flips the cages to encourage oyster growth.

He explained some of the challenges that come with the practice, such as freshwater influx from high river levels and pesky crabs and snails that can damage the caged shellfish. Still, he does the work because he loves it.

“Every time I get in this boat, I start smiling,” he said. “It’s a little different, but it’s wonderful.”