The Sligo Oyster Experience, a seafood company based in Ireland, has won an award in the Seafood Innovation category at the national Irish Food Awards for its pickled oyster product sold in glass jars.
The company won the award with its recently launched Sligo Oyster Pickled Oysters. The product retails at EUR 18.00 (USD 19.62) per jar and contains six hand-shucked oysters in one of two flavors: wild blackberry balsamic, sourced from nearby North Mayo-based Wildwood Balsamics, and water mint and lemon balm.
The product was launched by Aisling Kelly Hunter as an evolution of her oyster tourism business. Hunter started Sligo Oyster Experience in 2018 to diversify earnings from her café business in the west coast Irish city of Sligo.
“I was trying to protect my business,” she told SeafoodSource.
The number of visitors showing up for the oysters quickly rose once she expanded from tastings to visiting the oyster farm run by her husband.
“Irish people are not the biggest fans of oysters as it’s a meat-eating country, but we were getting an awful lot of Europeans and especially North Americans,” Hunter said.
Tourists participating in oyster tastings at the café and joining tours of the local oyster farm were keen to take something home after the tour that would last, Hunter said. Thus, the pickled oyster product was born.
The flavors were a natural development from the tastings Hunter had already been running, as she used Wildwood Balsamics as an accompaniment with oysters at her tastings.
“Customers who like to eat oysters in their natural state always liked the balsamic parings, so we explored that and worked with a food technologist for nearly a year to develop the product,” she said.
Ireland’s west coast is home to numerous farms producing oysters for market largely comprising ...