OUR STORY

North Fork Big Oyster is a family owned and operated oyster farm that produces boutique Peconic oysters for restaurants, events and oyster lovers of all stripes in and around New York.

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Our oyster seed comes from the best New York oyster hatcheries. Before “planting” in cages on the bay bottom, the seed spends several weeks in our Mattituck Creek flupsies devouring algae from the warm, nutrient-rich creek water.  When the seed size reaches ¾”, it is ready for a trip to the deep end of the pool in a corner of the Peconic known as Hog Neck Bay between the North and South forks of Eastern Long Island.  We grow natural seed that spawns and contributes to the wild oyster population of Peconic Bay.   

 

It takes two years until the oysters are ready for the table.  In the meantime, they are hauled to the surface every six weeks to be tumbled and sorted.   The farm work makes for a deep connection to the creek and bay and keeps us honest about what we can do to improve our oysters, our farm and our surroundings.

 

The waters around Long Island were some of the richest oyster grounds in the world until overharvesting and other factors decimated the oyster population, along with habitat for scallops, crabs, and fin fish.   Also lost were the beneficial algae filtering and sequestration of nitrogen and carbon that the oysters use to build their shells.  Oyster farms are one of the few if not only restorative aquaculture practices.  As farms like ours have grown, the bay has seen beneficial trends like increases in fin fish populations and decreases in the number of algae blooms that deplete oxygen dissolved in the bay water.

 

We strive to produce the best oysters possible and along the way do our part to improve the ecology of the waters that support the farm.

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Taste the difference!