SV Chat: Growing abalone beneath the Monterey Wharf

Beneath the Municipal Wharf in the coastal community of Monterey, a fascinating experiment in ocean farming has played out for more than three decades.

That’s where the Monterey Abalone Company grows its namesake variety of seafood: red abalone, a gastropod or sea snail, that humans have harvested and traded in California for thousands of years. Beneath the ocean’s surface, abalone cling to the seabed with a strong, foot-like appendage and dwell in radiant shells to stay safe from predators. But, as with clams and scallops, their meat long has been prized by humans.

Abalone have a long and storied history in California. But these underwater snails were nearly wiped out by fishing and disease, and in the 1990s, regulators closed the commercial abalone fishery. That’s when Art Seavey, 67, and his business partners began growing abalone beneath the wharf in Monterey.

The abalone are reared directly in the saltwater of the Monterey Bay, within cages that hang beneath the wharf. They’re grown in a hatchery and fed a diet of giant kelp that’s sustainably harvested from the surrounding area. When they’re large enough for sale, the abalone are shipped live to restaurants and directly to gourmands in California and beyond. The company employs 12 people.

Since joining the company in 1994, Seavey has witnessed big changes in the abalone market and in California’s underwater ecology. He spoke with us recently about the business. Edited for length and clarity.

Q: California is home to various species of abalone. What kind does Monterey Abalone Company grow?

A: The red abalone, called “California reds.” They take a long time to grow. (The California Department of Fish and Wildlife) did some radiocarbon dating of shells, and they found that the really big ones, that are 10 inches and over, could be 100 years old when they die. The smallest size we sell are about three-and-a-half inches in shell length. They’re about four years old.

Q: Who do you sell your abalone to?

A: Most of our production goes to restaurants — a bunch of restaurants here on the Monterey Peninsula. And then to restaurants in San Francisco and throughout California. When production is big enough we can also ship to the East Coast, or all over the country.

Q: How much does one of your abalone cost?

A: A medium-sized abalone goes for about $20.

Q: How’s business at the moment?

A: It’s been slow. I don’t know what’s going on. The economy’s been up and down. And all the wars everywhere, and the natural disasters — I think everybody’s hunkering down. That’s my feeling. Restaurants are really slow here. They’re always really slow in January, and they start to pick up in March and April. They get very busy in the summer.

Q: What does abalone taste like?

A: It’s a cross between a scallop and calamari. Texture-wise, it’s more like calamari. But flavor-wise, it’s a cross between the two.

Q: When your customers order a shipment of abalone, do they receive them raw?

A: Yes, they’re live and in the shell. We don’t do any processing — we think that’s the best product we can give a chef. There’s a small learning curve in learning how to shuck and cook the abalone. Some people eat it raw, and some people eat it cooked.

Q: Many different cultures, internationally, enjoy abalone.

A: Abalone has interesting cultural affiliations. In Korean culture, abalone is essential for healing. Other cultures consider it to be an aphrodisiac. In California, when the European settlers came, they didn’t know what abalones were. The Asian immigrants did. It wasn’t until the 1920s that a German restaurant owner in Monterey “invented” the abalone steak. He made it like a schnitzel, and he served an abalone dinner for a nickel. Within 10 years, they were pulling a million pounds of abalone a year out of Monterey Bay.

Q: Why not harvest abalone directly from the seabed? Why do you have to grow them in cages?

A: There used to be a commercial fishery for abalone in California. It was closed in ’97. There was an epidemic. One of the main diseases that affects abalone in California is called “withering syndrome.” It’s a disease, a bacteria, that affects the cells of the esophagus. They get all swollen up and slowly starve to death. There was a really big outbreak of that in the mid ’90s, and that led to the closure of the commercial fishery. That epidemic really hit hard.

Q: Does California produce much abalone today?

A: Our farm is small. In the ’90s, there were more than a dozen abalone farms in California. Now there are only two; there’s also one in Goleta called The Cultured Abalone. They’re an onshore farm, with a seawater pumping system, and they grow the abalone in tanks. The highest number of abalone we’ve had in our inventory has probably been 350,000.

Bigger farms are in the millions. The biggest farms are in South Korea and China. They’re very large production industries, and they have, of course, a big demand in China. It used to be that Japan was the biggest market for abalone, but I’m quite sure that China has surpassed it.

Q: But you don’t ship your abalone to other countries?

A: We’re small enough that we can sell everything in California. We like it that way.

Profile

Name: Art Seavey

Position: Partner and President, Monterey Abalone Company

Education: Master of Science in Ecology, University of California, Davis

Residence: Monterey

Five things about Art Seavey

1. He’s always loved the ocean and joked when he was a kid that he would work at the wharf in Monterey someday.
2. The recent Dune movies starring Timothée Chalamet are some of his favorite flicks. He’s read the original book, by Frank Herbert, multiple times.
3. Though he has a Master’s degree in ecology, Seavey identifies more as a farmer than a marine biologist.
4. Seavey once worked as a shrimp farmer in Ecuador.
5. In his free time, Seavey spends time with his family, cycles and enjoys music.