"Over 20 years in the business and still always passionate about oysters" Hugo Vajk of Caledonian Oyster Company told Aquaculture Today.

As one of the biggest oyster farms in Scotland, Caledonian Oyster Company has been short listed for an Aquaculture Today Fit for the

Future Award. The company is credited with significantly increasing the market for Scottish oysters.

The Caledonian Oyster Company is owned and personally run by Hugo and Judith Vajk, who have been farming oysters for twenty years in France and the Channel Isles before returning to Scotland in 1995.

The company farms the Pacific oyster or Crassostrea Gigas, which does not breed naturally in Scottish waters. Every year 5 mm Pacific oyster seed is bought from a hatchery where oysters are encouraged to spawn under laboratory conditions.

The seed oysters are put into mesh bags and fastened to trestle tables which are set on the seabed. The tables are accessible at low water and this is when the oysters can be graded and the bags turned - general husbandry.

As the oysters grow they are put into bags with a larger mesh until they are ready to be sold. On average it takes three years for an oyster to reach marketable size.

The Caledonian Oyster Company Ltd has its own depuration facilities on site in Loch Creran. The oysters are depurated when the bacterial count is higher than usual - generally in the summer months.

Depuration means that the oysters are left in tanks for 42 hours with UV treated water being pumped through the system. This eliminates any bacteria that the oyster might have accumulated.

Caledonian Oysters can offer any size of oyster and in any quantity from the half dozen to the tonne shipment. They specialise in supplying to the wholesale market.

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