We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ben Gonzalez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ben below.

Ben, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Southold Bay Oysters began as a small hobby when me and my husband Dave joined the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Suffolk Project in Aquaculture Training (SPAT) to learn how to grow oysters. After two years of tending our floating bags containing hundreds of baby oysters, we finally enjoyed our first harvest and began shucking our bounty at dinner parties and family events. Our parties were so popular that we decided to name our oysters Southold Shindigs! Our hobby grew to become a small business focusing on a direct-to-consumer model in an industry that is mainly driven by a wholesale model.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an oyster and shellfish enthusiast sharing unique and notable shellfish experiences I encounter around the world. Living on Shelter Island (NY) I spend the summers giving oyster educational lectures and volunteering on marine biology research programs.

I started my oyster farm almost 10 years ago, leaving behind 20 years of corporate live as a Global Marketing executive. Here is the story of my small business:

Southold Bay Oysters began as a small hobby when Ben and his husband Dave joined the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Suffolk Project in Aquaculture Training (SPAT) to learn how to grow oysters. After two years of tending to their floating bags containing hundreds of baby oysters, they enjoyed their first harvest and began shucking their bounty at dinner parties and family events.

In hopes of moving into a commercial oyster farm, Ben and Dave applied for a 10-acre aquaculture site through the Suffolk County Aquaculture Lease Program. After completing the application process and obtaining numerous required permits, Southold Bay Oysters began growing their first crop of commercial oysters in 2016. Throughout the first growing season, the greenhorn oystermen attended to their oyster cages using a retrofitted 19′ Mako scallop boat named El Pulpo that they purchased from a retired local bayman. Much of the process was figured out along the way with the helpful advice of other local oyster growers. 2017 was the first commercial harvest for Southold Bay Oysters. Ben and Dave attended events around the North Fork showcasing their local oysters, known as Southold Shindigs.

After 10 years of hard work Ben and Dave decided to pass the operation of Southold Bay Oysters to a younger farmer. Now they are oyster ambassadors, finding new oysters to taste and sharing the knowledge of this aquaculture delicacy. Oyster up!

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the pandemic we had to completely re-think the way we conducted our business. Our go to market is a direct-to-consumer model, where we serve fresh oysters to our customers at local events or farm tours. Customers love to gather around the shucking table as I conducted shucking demonstrations and talk about oysters. Clearly during the pandemic this was not feasible anymore. So we had to pivot.

We came up with the idea of setting up oyster shuck stations at the beach of our farm. Each group with have their own private station that was more than 6 feet apart from each other. With this new configuration I will give everyone a step by step class on how to shuck their own oysters and enjoy them at the farm. This really worked, and customers were delighted. Now I offer Shuck Parties at local libraries, and people’s homes. We just had one early this last winter in Crested Butte, Colorado.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Our oyster farm was a two man operation (my husband and myself). After 20 years of corporate roles, moving to a small family business is an adventure. During our first season we were jack of all trades, addressing everything that had to be done at the farm. It was overwhelming and things were not getting done. I decided to apply my corporate experience to the farm, and we started doing “operational debrief meetings” after each week of work. I used to do these after big project with heads of department with about 10 people in the room. This time it was only the two of us.

Well, it worked. We organized the work into two clusters and separated Customer Facing roles (lead by my husband) with Farm Operational Roles (lead by me). Productivity at the farm excelled, and best of all we were not as tired at the end of each week. Remember, a hobby that becomes a business shall always be fun!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theoystersommelier.com
• Instagram: @oyster_sommelier
• Other: These are the credentials for the oyster farm we founded:

  www.SoutholdBayOysters.com
  @SoutholdBayOysters