The Kelly Gigas Oyster

Taste the Difference
You’ll immediately notice the difference between a Kelly Native Flat Oyster and a Kelly Gigas Oyster. The Native Flat Oyster offers up a stronger flavour – a symphony of salt, wild grasses and crystal freshness. The Kelly Gigas is a younger oyster: it does not stay and feed as long in the water as the Native Flat, so the taste is milder. While our farming method that takes advantage of the cool Atlantic water promotes a fabulous, firm flesh..

Know How They Grow
It’s a labour of love as the Kelly Gigas Oyster grows its way to perfection.

Gigas seed sourced from hatcheries is grown with great care and attention within Galway Bay, to produce a well-shaped, plump oyster. All oysters are sorted by size and grouped this way in their growing bags. As the oysters grow and mature, they are hand-turned by the farmer to make sure any brittle, unattractive edges are removed and the oyster grows according to the classic tear-drop shape, with a deep, meat-filled shell. At just the right time, the oysters are moved to larger bags and thinned out, to prevent over-crowding.

As the oysters sit above the seabed, they enjoy the ideal environment – while the tide coming in twice daily brings in the goodness and nutritious food supply of the Atlantic Ocean’s phytoplankton.

The Gigas Oysters are finished in the rich estuarine water of our own oyster bed, where they fatten and develop their own unique flavour. Only when each oyster displays its perfect, required quality characteristic, do we harvest the crop.

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Patience. Passion. And people who work as one with the sea to grow, nurture and harvest what are described as ‘the best flavoured oysters in the world’. It can be three years’ in the making – but the taste is timeless.

Consistency and Quality

Our state-of-the-art grading machines ensure oysters are sorted meticulously into their four size/weight classes.

This guarantees you will always receive oysters of the specific size you and your customers want.

Packed-In Freshness

We pack all of our oysters in our special woven timber baskets – as practical as they are pleasing.

Each oyster is packed with the deep shell down to retain its wonderful juice, and each basket is packed with fresh seaweed to seal in freshness and flavour.

Helping The Ocean’s Friend

We honour the oyster as the conservation-specialist it is. Because oysters pump large volumes of water through their body as they feed, they filter the water and remove algae – making the ocean cleaner and healthier for every other sea creature.

At Kelly Oysters, making sure oysters continue doing their good work is important – so our re-stocking policy means we ‘give back’ to the ocean.