BP oil spill in Gulf hurting seafood sales in Hampton Roads

The refrigerated trucks that deliver Gulf of Mexico oysters to Sam Rust Seafood in Hampton have dwindled from two a week to one - and it's only half full.

The piles of oysters shucked by Shores & Ruark Seafood in Urbanna have shrunk by as much as 60 percent. And L.D. Amory & Co., a seafood processor on the Hampton waterfront, trucked 35 bushels of oysters last week to a Chicago buyer that normally gets 50.

Seafood operations up and down the Virginia coast hook a large part of their business to the fishing industry in the Gulf. Many have suffered a drop in sales since the BP oil spill led to the shutdown of large fishing areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

"Orders are being cut because they can't fill them," said Meade Amory, vice president of L.D. Amory, founded by his great-grandfather.

Amory's sales from hauling seafood to the Midwest have fallen 15 to 30 percent because of the lost oyster business, he said. Amory and others said they have made claims to

British Petroleum for financial assistance.

"In this economy, we're struggling to keep our head above water," Amory said. "And then you get hit by this, and it's frustrating, to say the least."

Oysters from the Gulf Coast are popular nationwide because they are among the least expensive. Many harvesting grounds there are closed or threatened.

As that supply ebbs, seafood buyers are clamoring for the shellfish and, in many cases, unable to get enough.

Prices are rising, and those are likely to show up in the supermarket seafood case and on restaurant menus at some point. That's also the case for shrimp and crab, much of which also comes from the Gulf.

Costs for shrimp and oysters already have increased 15 to 20 percent for the Farm Fresh supermarket chain, Joe Brown, its vice president of seafood, wrote in an e-mail.

"We're all going to see higher prices unless something happens and we can stop this," said Bruce Edmonds, vice president of Sam Rust, which sells a variety of seafood to food service suppliers, grocery chains, hotels and restaurants in multiple states.

Before the oil spill, Gulf oysters accounted for as much as 95 percent of the shucked product that Sam Rust carried, and about 70 percent of the live-in-shell product, Edmonds said.

Last week, for the first time in more than 25 years, Sam Rust sold out of Gulf oysters.

"We've never just run out," he said.

Fish buyers from Indiana to Arkansas are begging for oysters, Edmonds said. He has declined to take big orders from outsiders that could swallow his whole supply, taking the shellfish away from his regulars in Virginia and North Carolina, which account for about 70 percent of his business.

Sam Rust expected to get about 100 sacks - each with about 300 oysters - on a truck from Galveston, Texas, by the weekend. "That's all I could get," Edmonds said. "If I could have bought a whole truck, I would have."

Sam Rust's cost for a sack of oysters has jumped 50 percent, to $45 from $30 three months ago, and the increase has been passed to

customers. Restaurants paid about $48 in March for a gallon of shucked oysters, which now costs $73, Edmonds said.

Many restaurant owners in South Hampton Roads said they prefer to source their seafood from Virginia or the closest waters possible. Those who use some Gulf product simply have replaced it with other suppliers.

"It doesn't impact us huge, but we do use Gulf oysters," said John Boggs, a co-owner of A.W. Shucks Raw Bar and Grill in Norfolk. "I do expect to see some disruptions" in supply.

Farm Fresh carried mostly Gulf shrimp and oysters but has found alternative sources, Brown said.

"In most cases, we have been able to blend cost of existing inventory with inbound purchases to keep the changes to a minimum," he wrote. "If the increases are minimal, we try to absorb it. If they are significant, we sell off the existing inventory and start shopping the market."

The shortage has an upside for Virginia shellfish producers and others up the East Coast. In the past two months, Sam Rust has sold almost as many Virginia oysters as he moved in all of 2009, Edmonds said.

"The whole country now is relying pretty heavily on East Coast oysters because of the lack of Gulf Coast oysters," he said.

That could help a shucking house such as Shores & Ruark, which harvests its own oysters from the James, Piankatank and Rappahannock rivers as well as Mobjack Bay. Still, oyster growers want to avoid overtaxing their beds and losing the potential for better harvests in coming years, said Rufus Ruark Jr., the company's president.

"If you take it too quick, you're going to kill what's not ready," he said.

Virginia once boasted a thriving oyster fishery, producing enough product from its own waters to keep multiple shucking houses busy and buoyant. But the native oyster population - plagued by disease, pollution, overfishing and lost habitat - sank to historic lows in recent decades.

The state's shucking houses had to look for other sources, and Gulf watermen filled the gap. Today, about two-thirds of the oysters shucked in Virginia come from Gulf waters, according to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the agency that regulates the state's seafood industry.

Since the oil spill, Shores & Ruark has lost about a third of its sales, which have dropped from $60,000 or more a week to about $40,000, Ruark said. He recently cut his work force in half, to about 20 employees, sending many of his Mexican shuckers home.

"I shuck when I've got oysters," he said.

At Pride of Virginia Seafood Products on the Northern Neck, oysters from the Gulf account for about 40 percent of the shellfish it shucks, said Stanley O'Bier Sr., president of the 65-year-old processor.

The company also relies on watermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas to buy Virginia-caught bait fish such as menhaden, which fill the same trucks that bring back Gulf oysters for the company to shuck.

These days, few Gulf crabbers need bait. Pride of Virginia has reduced trips to about two a week from as many as 12, O'Bier said.

"We don't know if we can survive," he said. "We're under such stress."

The processors fear the worst is yet to come as prime oyster season begins this fall. Consumers tend to want the shellfish for holiday tables, particularly for stuffing.

It's not so much about the cost of oysters as their availability, Edmonds said.

"Supply, supply, supply," he said. If he can get the shellfish, "people are going to pay the price."

Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com