A small office in a gray prefab, a greenhouse with ponds and a mysterious gray and white concrete building. A stone’s throw from the turquoise waters of the East China Sea, these Spartan installations built on the coast of the small island of Kumejima, in the far south of Japan, are home to a veritable oyster revolution. GO Farm, a subsidiary of the Japanese company General Oyster (GO), produces virus-free oysters using water from the depths of the ocean, with programmable taste and which have never been submerged at sea.
Ten years of research were necessary to develop a technique for producing these oysters on land, called “8th Sea Oyster 2.0” – the “eighth sea” describes the deep waters, which are added to the seven seas of the legends of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The challenge of sufficient water circulation, adequate food and optimal temperature management had to be met, all at a low cost. The innovations have given rise to patents filed in several countries, including Japan and the United States. Unveiled this summer, the new generation oyster would have a taste ” very soft “according to experts.
The project was born from lessons learned from the near-bankruptcy of General Oyster. In 2003, GO opened an oyster bar in the upscale Akasaka district of Tokyo. The success was such that the company opened others throughout Japan – it still has twenty-six today. In 2006, oyster farms in Japan were hit by a norovirus epidemic. Many customers fall ill, the bars are deserted, the business comes close to bankruptcy.
“We depended on the producers. We couldn’t do anything. We then decided to process our oysters”explains Kyoko Washiashi, at the time responsible for customer relations, now in charge of operations in Kumejima. “By eliminating the risk of poisoning, we open up promising commercial opportunities”adds Hidenori Yoshida, the president and CEO of the company, whose sales reached 3.7 billion yen (24 million euros) and an operating profit of 128 million yen at the end of the financial year. March.
Power plant
General Oyster opts for purification with sea water drawn from more than two hundred meters deep because it does not contain any viruses. The company launched this business in July 2014 in Nyuzen, Toyama Prefecture, on the coast of the Sea of Japan. Maintaining oysters for forty-eight hours in a basin containing water from the depths reduces the number of bacteria such as E.coli And Vibrio under the standards established by the company, more severe than those of the law on food hygiene. Each year, the company sells more than six million of these oysters called “8th Sea Oyster 1.0”.
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