Oyster farmers of various estuaries along the Sapphire Coast received multiple awards after entering in the Sydney Royal Fine Food Awards.
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The oysters were scored out of 100 for their appearance, flavour and quality.
“You enter two dozen oysters into the competition, and what the judges look for is consistency in size and shape.
“They also judge the outside, so you have to clean them up to make them look presentable.
“Then they open them and see how much of the shell the oyster fills, they will turn them over and then check the quality, the colour and creaminess and whether it has started to spawn, full spawn or partial spawn.
“Then they will eat them and they will judge the texture and the taste and general pleasure of eating the oyster,” Caroline Henry of Wonboyn Oysters said.
By entering the awards, oyster farmers said it allowed them to gain a certain quality assurance of their product as well as marketing advantages.
Kel and Caroline Henry of Wonboyn Rock Oysters were pleased to receive a gold and silver award.
“It is something to showcase what you are doing, it gives you the confidence in what you are doing with your farming methods and that you are actually producing a really good product,” Ms Henry said.
“You can also have confidence that when you send your oysters off to wholesalers or restaurants, that they have a good product and are going to be happy with it and their customers are going to be happy.”
Sue McIntyre and Greg Carton of Broadwater Oysters received three silvers.
Ms McIntyre said “the competition is great because it really encourages the oyster industry to aspire to grow that uniform oyster and the scoresheet gives great feedback”.
“You can set your oysters aside and treat them differently to your commercial harvest, but it is meant to be a reflection of your commercial crop.
“What we tend to do is enter on the day that entries close, grabbing the oysters that are in the shed on the day and then putting them in to be judged. We are a bit different than other people who go in it,” she said.
Superior Oysters Merimbula received three bronze although weren’t as happy as they were last year when they had received gold and silver.
“Our oysters are better quality now than what they were a week ago, because we had a bit of rain and they had spawned.
“We were nearly not going to put them in it, but at the end of the day I wasn’t expecting anything and we still received something,” Darren Deeth of Superior Oysters said.
Other growers to have success at the show included Wonboyn Wilderness Oysters of Kiah with a gold; Stirling Oysters of Merimbula Lake a silver; silver and four bronze to Merimbula Gourmet Oysters; two silvers and a bronze to Wapengo Rocks; two silvers and a bronze for Hazelgrove of Lochiel; one silver and two bronze for Kingfisher Oysters of Bermagui and the champion’s crown and multiple gold for Tathra Oysters.