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Pangea Shellfish company conducted a study on "fresh" oysters. A good article for the oysters lovers.
We all know dead oysters must not be served and eaten. Unless they are flash-frozen oysters (dead) which seems to popular recently, but that's a topic for another time.
So what is fresh oyster? Does oysters being alive means fresh? Do you know that oysters can actually be alive out of water for around a month?
Based on our own experience and practice, live oysters are only fresh and taste "fresh" for around 7 days from harvest date. So with our imports which takes approximately 2 days of flight from overseas farms to Singapore, there is about 5 days left. And it actually starts to get tricky from the 4th day, it takes a very much experienced shucker to pick out the not so good oysters. A keen shucker with good nose, sight and touch is vital for a good oyster experience.
Some industry survey and research- more often than not retailers are still retailing them beyond 8-9 days. Could be worse as a high proportion of retailers are middleman and may not have a clue on origin and harvest dates.. while some of these oysters may still taste okay -subjected to the type of oysters- they will never be 100/100. Our local oyster consumption culture permits that as we are still very much in our infancy stage in terms of oyster appreciation and knowledge.
For consumers who are out there hunting for oysters especially unshucked ones, please request to examine original packaging (usually comes in crates/styrobox) that will list harvest dates. If advice is required purchasing oysters from anywhere, please just WhatsApp us! We will be happy to help!