Teamwork Between Harvesters and Shuckers Gets Oysters to Your Table

Inside the plain oblong building on South Carolina’s coastal May River, the air is thick with the sulfurous smell of marsh.

But the damp, languorous surroundings belie the purpose of the workers within. The harsh cracks of hammer against shell reverberate through the room, as eight women force open oyster meat, from sunup to sundown, October through May, at the Bluffton Oyster Co.

The shuckers, like the harvesters, are independent workers and are paid per gallon or bushel of oysters. Each shucker works with a particular harvester; often, they are a husband-and-wife team.

“He and she both get paid for this gallon. The price is confidential,” company production manager David Nettle said from the kitchen, where he rinses off the latest batch of oysters brought from the shucking room.

“The hours are indefinite on shucking time,” but often the women work more than 12 hours per day, he said. “Everything that was picked last night gets shucked today. If they don’t shuck it before they leave, then there’s no place for the men to put their oysters when they come in the next day.”

As he speaks, a woman asks if he wants to join the workers for a lunch of red rice and other fare of the coastal Low Country.

“No thanks,” he said. It was only 10 a.m. But for the women, who began work at 6 a.m., it was lunchtime.

After the tide comes in, covering up the May River’s bountiful oyster beds, the oystermen motor their bateaux, laden with mud-caked mounds of their harvest, back to the dock. Their catch sits atop nets stretched across the small flat-bottomed boats.

After they line up at the shore, a motorized chain hoist is lowered from the dock to pull up the bulging nets. Several workers hose down the oysters and pitch them into wheelbarrows. They wheel the cargo to the dark, damp shucking room, where the women, dressed in long white aprons, white rubber boots and gloves, take charge.

Standing at two long concrete tables, they hammer away at the tough shells and pry out the meat with small knives. They drop the slimy delicacies into buckets and toss the empty shells onto several large piles on the tables.

“Then they bring it up to me,” Nettles said. The women push each bucket of oyster meat and juice through a small window that separates the shucking room and kitchen. Nettles washes the contents and weeds out small shells at a special skimming table.

After draining out the water, he weighs the meat in 8-pound “dry packs,” which contain “nothing but meat,” he said. The company packs an average of 50 gallons per day, he said, adding that there are 800 to 1,000 oysters per gallon.