While most businesses strive to stay afloat, Shell Ring Oyster Company is always under water.
Located in Skull Creek between Pinckney Island and Port Royal Sound, the company has based its financial future on being staked to the bottom of the ocean. It is producing briny, fresh oysters that have created a high demand from locals and visitors alike. Known as “aquaculture,” the saltwater farm is licensed through an intertidal lease from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
Andrew Carmines is the founder and a co-owner of Shell Ring Oyster Company. Even though Carmines grew up on Hilton Head Island, his introduction to aquaculture started across the country in the Pacific Ocean. After graduating from college, Carmines took an internship in California at the St. Regis and Century Plaza hotels in Century City that eventually turned into a permanent position.
On his off days, Carmines spent as much time as possible in the Pacific Ocean, surfing and spearfishing. Near Santa Barbara, he learned about oysters growing in nets in the open ocean waters. These farms were harvesting big, perfect, single select oysters in an area that was not indigenous to growing oysters. “It piqued my interest,” he said. “It was something I noticed that could solve a lot of problems by developing oysters of proper size and shape.”
Carmines moved back to Hilton Head in 2006. He began learning the management side of his family’s business, Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks, which they had purchased in 1975. As he worked to strengthen Hudson’s future, and eventually became its owner, he never stopped thinking about aquaculture entrepreneurship opportunities.
Rodgers and Carmines work to remove a bag of oysters at the company’s farm
The Start of Shell Ring Oyster Company
The motivation to start an oyster company started with soft shell crabs. Considered a seafood delicacy by many, soft shell crabs are very popular among Lowcountry diners because the entire crab can be consumed.
In 2015, Hudson’s started the impressive effort of harvesting soft shell crabs on-site. That spring, live blue crabs were caught in traps from local waterways and brought to the restaurant. There, they were placed in shallow tubs, covered in salt water, and monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As part of their molting process, crabs shed their hard shell exterior and a few hours later their new soft skin hardens into a larger shell. During the small window of being without a hard shell, the crabs are quickly harvested for consumption. This on-site process allowed the restaurant to serve incredibly fresh soft shell crabs – straight from the ocean.
“People were so enamored with being able to see the process and understand it,” Carmines said. “The quality of the product, because we had hands on it from start to finish, was superior to anything I had ever seen at a restaurant before.”
The experience and response was a lightbulb moment for Carmines.
Carmines, Rodgers, Brooke Peck and Trevor Harden bundled up for a day on the water to visit the farm
The tidal creeks of the Lowcountry are lined with wild oysters growing clustered together. However, consumer demand has skyrocketed over the years for single select oysters, which are individually grown and harvested. Unlike a cumbersome cluster of oysters, single selects are easily shucked and eaten on the half shell. Carmine’s goal was to cultivate his own single select oysters from the waterways underneath his restaurant.
He headed to Chincoteague Island, Virginia, to learn the process from well-established oyster operations. That is where he met his oyster farm mentor, Mike McGee. “He just took us under his wing and showed us everything that he could show us in three to four days,” Carmines said. From there, he returned to Hilton Head armed with the knowledge needed to start Shell Ring Oyster Company.
The first five years were full of trial and error. “We’d have one year where we did pretty good, where 80% of the oysters that we put out went to full size and we were able to sell them at the restaurant,” he said. “Then we had years where we got completely wiped out.”
The worst year was 2016, when Hurricane Matthew completely annihilated their farming efforts in October. Just as they started to rebuild, Tropical Storm Irma hit in 2017, slowing the farm’s progress yet again.
Andrew Carmines and Doug Rodgers are the owners of Shell Ring Oyster Company, an oyster and clam farm next to Pinckney Island
A New Partnership
In 2020, Carmines met Doug Rodgers, an experienced clam harvester from the Northeast. Rodgers had spent years carefully combing the Long Island Sound to commercially harvest clams. Each week, he delivered clam orders to restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York. Early into the New York City COVID-19 shutdown, orders for his fresh clams at local restaurants evaporated overnight. He was forced to pivot to delivering clams to individual homes to keep his business going.
Back on Hilton Head, Carmines was overwhelmed with the financial ramifications of COVID-19. Learning to navigate furloughs and trying to figure out how to safely pivot the restaurant’s operations required a lot of attention. He had little time for working at the oyster farm, as keeping Hudson’s afloat was his top priority.
Looking for warmer weather and more sunny days, Rodgers and his family packed up and moved to Bluffton. He came to Carmines for advice on how to start his own oyster farm, but quickly learned that bureaucracy, time, and the resources to start a farm would require many years of no income and stress.
The oyster tumbler is used to sort oysters by size and knock off new growth
Business advice from years ago kept popping into Carmines’ mind: “Would you rather have 50% of something or 100% of nothing?” After meeting several times, the two men decided to become equal partners in the company. “We really hit it off,” Rodgers said. “That’s the biggest thing about having a business partner is someone you get along with really well.”
“He came with a whole lot of experience,” Carmines said. “My goal was never to grow a lot of oysters, it was just to have enough for the restaurant. But Doug has every inclination to scale the business, which is wonderful, because I just wouldn’t have the bandwidth to do that.” Plus, Rodgers brought a fresh outlook to the farming process and business. “It’s a no-brainer to try to fix something that was sort of broken, and elevating it to the next level was an easy choice,” Rodgers said.
CH2’s Jevon Daly and Carmines enjoy a sunny day on the farm
Shell Ring Oysters
Accessing a submerged aquaculture farm is a daily challenge. The farm is accessible only by boat at low tide, since the Lowcountry experiences huge tidal shifts every 12 hours. “You’re working against the clock all the time,” Carmines said. Even during low tides, the farm might not be accessible due to various weather-related issues. Storms or strong winds blowing from the Northeast can push water inland and cause low tides to be higher than expected. High waters make the farm inaccessible, which impedes its success.
Due to quality water and a large food supply around Hilton Head, the farmed oysters grow quickly most of the year. Grown in bags, baby seed oysters measure around nine millimeters in diameter but can grow to the size of a quarter in just a week. If not monitored and sorted frequently, the fast-growing oysters can easily burst the bag open and become lost profit.
Much of the farm’s physical labor involves sorting oysters by size. Shell Ring’s boat is outfitted with an electric tumbler tube with various sized holes that start small and slowly get larger throughout the tube. Keeping oysters of similar size together is important so that large oysters grouped with smaller oysters don’t jeopardize equal access to the ocean’s food supply.
Carmines hopes to build a larger demand for raw clams from his Hudson’s diners
Bags of oysters are removed from the farm’s ocean floor and are dumped in the tumbler. It slowly spins as oysters make their way down the tube. The smallest oysters quickly fall through the tiny holes and are caught in the first bin. Medium sized oysters go a bit farther through the tube and fall into a second bin. The largest oysters that make it through the full gamut are large enough for consumption. Each bin of similar sized oysters is then dumped in its own bag to go back in the ocean to continue growing. With more than half a million oysters growing at any time, the work of sorting never ends.
Another benefit of tumbling is to help shape the growth of the oysters. “You have to constantly be tumbling the oysters to knock the new growth off,” Carmines said. “That process makes them grow a much harder shell and makes them more uniform in shape and size.”
With the vast amount of oysters – and clams – the farm requires attention most days and hard work year-round. Rodgers is tasked with overseeing the farm’s maintenance and he is a perfect fit. “Ever since I was a kid, I was drawn to salt water,” he said. “I always wanted to be near it, on it, or in it. No matter how hard I have to work, I will always be connected to salty water!”
Doug Rodgers loves being on the water and heads up operations for Shell Ring Oyster Co.
Shell Ring Clams
Clams were added a few years after the farm started its operation. Grown in mesh bags that are staked to the bottom of the ocean, the clams slowly bury themselves in the sand as they mature. It takes approximately two years for a clam to be large enough for consumption.
“Oysters are way more labor intensive than clams,” Rodgers said. Clams need to be sized three times between planting on the farm and serving on a plate. Whereas oysters need only a year to reach maturity, they each require around 10 tumbles between planting and harvesting. “If I had known this back in 2016, I would have planted clams first because they take a little longer to grow than oysters,” Carmines said.
Last year, a cownose ray, the sting ray’s bigger cousin, gnawed its way into the company’s clam bags and devoured them. “It chewed them up like Chiclets,” said Carmines. Unfortunately, this wiped out a large clam harvest and was a mess to clean up.
Shell Ring is producing clams along with oysters. Both are available at Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks.
Many people are surprised to see raw clams on the menu at Hudson’s. “If you go up to Long Island, clams are almost more popular than oysters up there,” Carmines said. “Down here, I tell people to try the raw clams, and they look at you like you have eight heads.” But that doesn’t slow down Carmines and his love of clams. “Doug thought that I was the biggest hindrance to the clam profits because I eat them a lot,” he said. He hopes that as more people try the clams, a bigger demand for raw clams will follow.
CH2’s Maggie Washo learns about wild oysters trying to attach themselves to Shell Ring’s single select oysters. In the distance, the shadowy oyster cages are barely visible beneath the water.
Shell Ring’s clam harvest has been so plentiful, that in addition to Hudson’s, the business has been able to sell fresh clams to other local restaurants. Cafe al Dente in Coligny Plaza and Farm in Bluffton are both purchasing Shell Ring clams for their diners to enjoy.
Carmines loves offering super fresh clams and oysters to his Hudson’s diners all year long.
Shell Ring’s Future
Carmines and Rodgers hope to move the farm operation from the bottom of the ocean to the top by setting up a floating farm in the future. With the current set-up, Shell Ring Oyster Company harvests between 200,000 to 300,000 oysters and approximately 300,000 clams each year. Due to high demand, Shell Ring oysters are only available at Hudson’s for now, but Carmines hopes to expand the farm’s output in the future. “So far, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, which is encouraging,” he said.
If approved by South Carolina, a pivot to a floating farm would allow access to the operation during all tide levels. “You can be out there for six to eight hours a day,” Carmines said. The change would also allow the company to substantially scale their production capabilities. “We’re super excited about the future,” he said. “It’s going to be really exciting and fun when we are able to get up to two to three million oysters a year.”
Visit shellringoystercompany.com for more information.
Just another day at the office for Rodgers
