Our quest for real, fresh, sustainable seafood.

We’ve wanted to bring fresh, sustainably harvested seafood to the Marketplace for some time and recently found the perfect team member to get us there. Our dream seafood offer is now becoming a reality thanks to Troy, our sustainable seafood seeker!

Meet Troy.

Troy grew up in beautiful Prince Edward Island, in a small village of 60 souls on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Troy was raised eating more fish than meat and has always had a deep passion for the sea - he remembers falling asleep to the sound of waves crashing through his bedroom window. Fishing has always been a big part of his life and his community in PEI, too. His dad is a fisherman, and he’d help his father and other fishermen whenever he got the chance. He recalls clam digging at low tide, a local pastime, finding beds of clams or quahogs and cooking them right on the beach.

Being so familiar with the incomparable taste of freshly caught seafood, his sole aim is to share this with Lufavores. First off, we sent him fishing for partners around PEI, to create a direct link from sea to table with them. After weeks on the road, here’s what Troy has brought to the Marketplace.

Oysters, Five Star Shellfish (Ellerslie, PEI)

Troy’s father and extended family have been fishing oysters for over a decade and proving their catches to Five Star Shellfish, a family-owned operation in Ellerslie.

For the oyster nerds out there, there are three grades of wild oysters: standards, choices, and selects. Standards are long and wonky, or small and awkward, and a little difficult to open if you’re a newbie, but they’re meaty and affordable. Choices are fairly uniform in shape, with a nice deep cup, and are easy to open - they’re also pricier. Selects are the cream of the crop, uniform in shape, nice, deep, easy to open.

Oysters in PEI are fished in inlets by tonging, a sustainable practice as it has minimal effect on the surrounding ecosystem and next to no by-catch. Harvesters then bring their oysters to Five Star Shellfish where they’re graded and stored in a bay until orders come in. When an order is placed, they’re taken out of the water and shipped the same day. Since it takes two days for a truck to get from PEI to Quebec, the freshest oysters you can get are just three days out of water.

Quahogs, Five Star Shellfish (Ellerslie, PEI)

These hard shell clams have always been around in abundance on PEI, but they’re not common on the market here in Quebec. Once cooked, they are a bit like steamed mussels but meatier. Troy loves them and wanted to introduce them to Lufavores.

Quahogs are most commonly dug out of the sand during low tide, but they can also be harvested by tonging like oysters. When the fishermen tong, only mud and seaweed come up, with little to no by-catch, and the bay floor is essentially left undisturbed.

Once harvested, quahogs are brought to Five Star Shellfish, where they are processed and stored in the water until orders come in, in which case quahogs are shipped that day, just like oysters.

Organic Mussels, Prince Edward Aqua Farms (Springbrook, PEI)

Prince Edward Aqua Farms are very dedicated to the sustainability of their production and the reduction of their environmental footprint. They’ve recently implemented a filtration process that greatly reduces potentially invasive species leaving their plant, and they’ve invested in a classifier treatment system that reduces sediment and particulate deposits leaving the facility by 90%. The refuse generated by this waste recovery system can be used as fertilizer by farmers and gardeners - an eco win-win.

Since straight-from-the-water organic mussels are next-to-impossible to find at market, Troy was excited to bring this option to the Marketplace. For those wondering what makes mussels organic, it’s the products used to clean and maintain the machinery and areas where mussels are stored.

These mussels are farmed in bays where they would be growing naturally anyway. Baby mussels (aka spat) are gathered by collectors during the spawning months (June and July). They’re suspended on rope lines at the right depth in mussel socks (long mesh bags), to allow for ideal natural feeding conditions.

We’re getting multiple shipments a week and working with different packaging, shipping, and storage systems to make sure that once the mussels are out of the water, they end up on the Marketplace within the next three days. (Sneak peek: you’ll get two pounds of these as a gift on any order $65+ this coming week!)

Bar Clams, Annand’s Clams (Tyne Valley, PEI)

Bar clams (also called Atlantic surf clams, or simply sea clams) are huge, edible, meaty saltwater clams.

Troy really connected with David and Carla Annand from Annand’s Clams - all three of them do what they do to share the pleasures of eating fresh seafood with the rest of us. Annand’s Clams is the only processor on PEI that can ship bar clams off the island.

Bar clams are harvested by dredging in sandy bays at 20 metres or less, as there is significantly less impact on the ocean floor when dredged at this depth versus in deep water. Storms and oscillations are almost always moving the sediment around on the ocean floor, so the tracks left by the dredge fill in and quickly return to normal.

Annand’s Clams also controls how much is fished. Even if bar clams are abundant, fishermen don’t fish them unless they get an order from the processor. Once harvested and readied, the clams that are meant for us are flash frozen and shipped right away. If you want to make like a PEI native, don’t throw your shells away - they’re big and beautiful and great to use as a holder of small items or as decoration!

Lobster Meat, Annand’s Clams (Tyne Valley, PEI)

Last but not least, lobster! We won’t be sending you live lobsters in your baskets (lol), but Annand’s Clams has cooked and frozen claw-and-knuckle lobster meat. They rely on about a dozen fishermen from PEI’s north and south shores to trap lobster daily. Traps are great as they have minimal by-catch and spawning females are easily released.

Annand’s Clams doesn’t have a lobster pound (a place to store lobsters in the water). Instead, everything is fished to order, prepared, flash frozen, and shipped directly to us. Fishing to order means no waste or overfishing.

We’re testing the water still...

...and this is just the beginning. Our goal is to bring you fresh, diverse, and sustainable seafood - directly from sea to table - and Troy is off to an incredible start finding the very best in the East. On top of outstanding freshness, this direct connection also means better prices for Lufavores. Since he’s been back from his PEI travels, Troy’s spending time talking to Lufavores one-on-one and helping out with basket assembly in our distribution centre to ensure everything is perfect.

A big thanks to all the Lufavores who have already embraced these new seafood arrivals. Based on your feedback so far, it looks like we’re on the right track. Give your favourite shellfish a try, keep the feedback coming, and look out for what Troy is bringing next on the seafood horizon.

Troy, launching his dad’s oyster dory (a small, lightweight boat).

The Confederation Bridge, spanning over 13 kilometers between PEI and Nova Scotia.

Workers at Annand’s Clams, shelling lobster claws and knuckles.

Troy and his dad, Johnny, out on their lease.

Abram-Village’s small harbour, PEI.

Troy and the incredible staff at Five Star Shellfish.