Taylor Shellfish Farms

Fifth-generation family shellfish farm, vertically integrated: it OWNS the 15,000+ acres of Washington tidelands, grows the animals, and owns the product through to its own oyster bars. In 2021 it became the FIRST and only bivalve farm in the United States to achieve ASC certification (and just the fifth US farm in ASC's global program), covering seven species, after a multi-day independent SCS Global Services audit across six Washington regions and 200+ concessions. Single-operator provenance plus a first-in-country third-party certification is exactly the standard 'exemplary' is meant to describe. Bivalve farming is also net-positive for water quality (filter feeding, no feed inputs).

Scale

Largest oyster producer in North America; 15,000+ acres of tidelands.

Feed & inputs

None. Filter feeders take natural phytoplankton; no feed, no antibiotics, no fertiliser. Structurally the lowest-input animal protein in the graph.

Animal welfare

N/A — bivalves.

Environmental

ASC-audited; shellfish farming actively filters water and provides habitat. Taylor is also a documented ocean-acidification research collaborator in Puget Sound.

Transparency

HIGH — ASC certification is publicly listed and species-specific; named growing areas (Totten Inlet, Samish Bay) are given per product.