What a lot of Cockle

Part of what makes our oysters, both native and rock oysters, so tasty is that they roam freely on the muddy sea bed down the Pyefleet and the river Colne.

The one problem this gives us is that there's very little for the baby oysters (spat) to hold on to when they are growing so they don't get washed out to sea. Oyster spat is tiny, really tiny, the picture below shows the spat at around 6 months.

It is one of our priorities to be as sustainable as possible so to help the oyster spat and to ensure that they don't get washed out to sea we place cockle shell on the sea bed where our oysters are. The shells settle on the muddy sea bed and give the spat something to grab hold of so they don't get washed away with the tide.

This is just one of the methods we use to ensure we have oysters for years to come.