Mimi's Large Oysters from Bremen, ME

Harvest location: Greenland Cove, Bremen, Maine

How they’re grown: The farm is located at the mouth of Greenland Cove in Muscongus Bay, in the town of Bremen (population 844]. On the outgoing tide the bay pulls in the warm nutrient rich water from the Medomak River and on the incoming, colder ocean water refreshes the cove. This influx of cold, renewed water is super clean and full of nutrients and clean, lending the oysters an oceanic brine. The crop takes 2-3 years from nursery-to-harvest, first starting in a surface culture nursery before being bottom planted at 15-25 1 depth for final grow out and harvest.

Their farm location was one of the first oyster leases in the area; while the nearby Damariscotta River has quite a few oyster leases, there are only two or three other growers in the same area as the Mimi's, which makes it a fun experiment - figuring out the things that work for this particular spot vs. more established farming areas.

Why they’re unique: John is a Duxbury native who first learned how to shuck oysters at the Winsor House [Island Creek's hospitality flagship across the street from the farm in Duxbury]!

Story: In 2016, after a few years working as an ocean engineer post-college, John returned to his hometown of Duxbury where he got his feet wet in the oyster farming biz. Soon after running that farm, he returned to his home state of Maine to manage the farm at Glidden Point. There are enough challenges to solve on an oyster farm to keep it interesting, and enough familiar skills working on the water to make it fun - John's dad is a boat builder and he grew up on the water, and has always searched for a way to be closer to it ideally on top of it. The complexities of and the strategy behind growing a truly great oyster appealed to his engineering brain. John's wife, Beatrice, started farming in 2020 when she moved to Maine and joined John at Glidden Point before they started Mimi's Oysters together later that year.

Consuming this product can expose you to chemicals including lead, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.