Deep Dive into Dibba Bay, with Ramie Murray

Tiffany Eslick
[00:00 - 00:09] I think that you should shuck an oyster for us, please, and tell us how to do it. I mean, I know that in Spinneys, you can just ask the fishmonger to shuck them for you, but it's always good to know what's going on.

Devina Divecha
[00:09 - 00:10] Someone wants to do it at home.

Ramie Murray
[00:10 - 00:12] It is a very valid life skill. It is, yes.

Tiffany Eslick
[00:13 - 00:15] Do you need a hand towel? No, no, no.

Ramie Murray
[00:16 - 00:17] He's an expert now.

Tiffany Eslick
[00:17 - 00:18] Yeah, he is an expert.

Ramie Murray
[00:18 - 00:25] But the amount of actually very competent chefs that when they're being filmed, suddenly go to pieces and skewer themselves.

Devina Divecha
[00:25 - 00:26] Please don't do that.

Ramie Murray
[00:26 - 00:28] Yeah, please don't do that. I'll try and not do that.

Tiffany Eslick
[00:32 - 00:39] Welcome to Nourish by Spinneys, the podcast which promises to inspire you to eat well and live well. I'm Tiffany Eslick.

Devina Divecha
[00:39 - 00:54] And I'm Devina Divecha. This is a space where we hope to nourish your heart and soul. On this show, we chat with leading players in the food community, from farmers to foodies, as well as health and well-being experts. It's all about engaging conversations and fresh ideas.

Tiffany Eslick
[00:54 - 00:59] So if last week was to go by anything, I'd say we're saying goodbye to winter and hello to summer.

Devina Divecha
[01:00 - 01:03] Please don't put that out there in the universe, Tiff. Just don't.

Tiffany Eslick
[01:03 - 01:12] Okay. We'll continue to enjoy the Dubai winter and more outdoor podcasting, much to the annoyance of our producer, who is shaking his head as we speak.

Devina Divecha
[01:12 - 01:24] But that doesn't actually deter us, does it, from grabbing all the gear and heading outside? And that's what we did for this episode. We went to the Umm Suqeim Fishing Harbor to visit a UAE classic, Dibba Bay oysters.

Tiffany Eslick
[01:25 - 01:34] You know, oysters are such a sort of dividing ingredient. You love them or hate them. I love them. But some people really have a diversity to them.

Devina Divecha
[01:34 - 01:54] Yeah. I mean, I am not entirely sure that I like oysters that much. I have to be convinced or brought around to your side. But we are speaking today with the founder of Dibba Bay, Remy Murray. And there's a lot of little nuggets about the right way to store, shuck, and eat oysters.

Tiffany Eslick
[01:54 - 02:01] This explains why you left just as we were presented to the plaza of oysters. I just thought… You've had a meeting.

Ramie Murray
[02:01 - 02:02] Yeah, I had to run.

Tiffany Eslick
[02:02 - 02:20] Yeah. You made a very swift exit. This episode is also about records. You'll hear about the guy who holds the Guinness World Record for oyster shucking. The number is 39. And we'll also set a new record for the number of times you'll hear the word shucking on a podcast episode.

Devina Divecha
[02:21 - 02:25] And we'll also talk about their impressive reef project. I believe you visited that as well, Tiff?

Tiffany Eslick
[02:26 - 02:47] Yeah. So I actually visited with the commercial team from Spinneys. A few weeks ago, and I saw this huge mound of oyster shells. And I, you know, I was asking Remy, what is this for? And then he explained, you can't actually see the reef project other than to see the mound of oyster shells, but the rest of it's under the water. But it's amazing what he's doing. Yeah, no, it sounded impressive as well when he was talking about it.

Devina Divecha
[02:47 - 03:03] But of course, this isn't Remy's first venture. He's someone who has grown up in the UAE and has run a few businesses as well before starting Dipa Bay. There was a design agency, a solar energy company as well. Until about 10 years ago, when he decided he was going to explore food production.

Ramie Murray
[03:03 - 03:42] It's quite simply from an entrepreneurial point of view of we're in this vastly prosperous and expanding country and we're importing, I don't know what the latest figures are, but it's something like 80% of all the food we're consuming. So I thought that would be something good to get in on. And I've always had an affinity with the sea. And then I find a wonderful stat about the percentage. The percentage of seafood that the UAE people eat per person, and it's one of the highest in the world. Right. And we're surrounded by the ocean on both sides of the country, yet still importing
[03:42 - 04:19] 80% of all the seafood we were eating. So I felt if I was going to go into food production, aquaculture would be the best way to go. It was quite, well, totally undeveloped at the time. I think there was one fish farm in existence, otherwise nothing. So un-developed. Unexploited as an industry. The government was talking about supporting food security, et cetera. So it seemed like the time was right. And I came at it, I mean, I'm not a qualified marine biologist. I didn't study aquaculture. So I was coming at it purely from an entrepreneurial business point of view.
[04:20 - 04:58] And I decided that if I was going to farm something, I wanted to do it as environmentally positively as possible. I wanted to do it. I wanted to do some sort of sustainable farming. And so because I was coming at it just fresh, I could pick what I wanted to do, what I thought was going to work. And so I landed very quickly on shellfish farming because it's one of the few forms of farming in the world, which is actually environmentally net positive. And it's not just oysters, like mussels, scallops, everything. As they grow, they're sequesting carbon in their shell and you don't feed them an artificial feed.
[04:59 - 05:38] They're naturally in the ocean on the phytoplankton levels. Plus they're super healthy and they're a gourmet food. So they're a high value food that could be branded and could be enjoyed in all the amazing new restaurants that were popping up in Dubai. So I landed on shellfish. I did my research and found that according to the literature, Chrysostryus gigas, which is Pacific cuptoys. It's a plant that's grown in Japan, which account for 90% of the world's farmed oysters. There's lots of different species, but this particular one, this is native to Japan and
[05:38 - 06:13] the coast of China, but has been introduced all over the world. And so it actually accounts for the vast majority of oysters coming out of Europe. So all of these different brands of French oysters, it's the same species, just with a different brand. Now, I'm not saying they're all the same. That's the wonderful thing about oysters is that they're very localized. And it's the same as in the wine industry. When you talk about the terroir of a wine, you can take the same vine from Burgundy planted in South America that will produce a Chardonnay grape, but the wine will taste different or
[06:13 - 06:52] the grape will taste different because of the nutrients and food that the vine is taking out of the soil. Oysters are the same. They're entirely a product of their area because they are filtering the water. And they're taking all the minerals to build their shell, and they're feeding on all the phytoplankton to build their bodies. And so they become very much a product of the environment. So our oysters are pretty distinct. They've got a lovely white shell. That's due to the mineral levels in the water from the Hadjar Mountains, those lovely limestone cliffs. And the taste is quite unique as well.
[06:52 - 07:07] But that's the same across most oysters. They can come from even the same bay and taste and look slightly different. They can be completely different from one side to the other because there's maybe a river coming in and there's different salinity levels. So there's different food growing, different wave actions, etc. Wow.

Tiffany Eslick
[07:07 - 07:11] And you have a term for this terroir. Yeah, the merroir.

Ramie Murray
[07:11 - 07:23] The merroir. Is that your term or is that like an actual term? I cannot take credit for that. Oh, I thought that was your term. No, no, no. I didn't invent it. It's not a fully mainstream term, so I'm trying to make it mainstream. So I'll take credit for that. Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[07:23 - 07:24] Let's make it something.

Devina Divecha
[07:25 - 07:41] And how did you pick the location though? Because you know, you're talking about... Well, merroir. But yeah, location clearly matters. So why does... Yeah. So talking about the environmental tolerance of this species, what I could see was that

Other speaker
[07:41 - 07:53] according to the literature, this species fell within the environmental tolerances of the east coast of the UAE. Arabian Gulf is different because it's shallower, so it gets a lot hotter. It gets way more saline.

Ramie Murray
[07:53 - 08:13] Whereas across in Fujairah, that's the tip of the Indian Ocean. And so it's got really, really deep water. And so you get upwellings of nutrients and cooler water. And so it's a different environment. And so these fall within, of course, the upper range, but they fall within the environmental tolerances of the environment in Fujairah.

Tiffany Eslick
[08:14 - 08:23] And how is this merroir environment affecting the seasonality and the taste of your oysters? Because I mean, I know you've got winter and summer oysters, right? Yes.

Other speaker
[08:23 - 08:25] Yeah. So we harvest the whole year round.

Ramie Murray
[08:25 - 09:02] And there is a difference in temperature. There's a difference in taste between winter and the summer oysters. And this is entirely down to the fat content. So during the winter, there's much higher levels of phytoplankton in the ocean. And so they're busily building up their stores, their glycogen stores. And the fat or glycogen stores is what gives the sweetness, the sweet taste to an oyster. And so when you are tasting an oyster or tasting anything, the human palate, we can only taste a few things. It's salt, sweet, umami, and acidity. Everything we taste is a combination of this.
[09:02 - 09:39] And so oysters have this natural brininess from the ocean. And then, especially in the winter, they'll have a high sweetness from the fat levels. Our oysters particularly have a high umami because we've got these big muscles inside them. So it's almost like a scallop, the adductor muscle. Because we grow them offshore, they're underwater all the time and they're getting buffeted a round by the currents and the waves. And so they're opening and closing and opening and closing and they develop this big muscle. So there's a couple of grams of protein in each individual oyster. So this contributes to the umami levels.
[09:39 - 10:16] And then the only thing you're missing is acidity, which of course leads to the traditional squeeze of lemon or vinaigrette. So what we're looking for, what I look for, where I enjoy an oyster the most is when you get that balance. Because it absolutely is transformative of the whole taste and experience when you get a lovely balance between the acidity, the salt, the sweet, the umami. And so in the winter, because you've got that higher sweet level with the fat, we have a much more acidic vinaigrette, which we use.
[10:16 - 10:52] And then in the summer, we have less sweetness in the oysters because there's actually less phytoplankton over the summer period. So the oysters are then burning their fat reserves over the summer. Which brings down the sweet level. So we like to balance that with our summer sauce, where we use a pomegranate molasses in the sauce. I love the fact that we're using pomegranate because of course that's in season over the summer in this part of the world. So we're using this lovely in-season fruit and we're using the molasses of it. And it's just, look, it's marginal, like it's just this slight sweetness, still with the vinaigrette. But again, it helps just with that balance.

Devina Divecha
[10:52 - 10:56] Do you have a preference between the summer and winter? Winter oyster? Yourself, personally?

Ramie Murray
[10:56 - 11:35] I like them both. Eat oysters every day. What I do find is in the winter, they can get really full, which a lot of people prize and really like that. However, it does start to unbalance it quite a lot and they'll be quite sweet and quite full on. Whereas in the summer, they're not as meaty. They're not as juicy. They're not as fat. But you can actually start tasting lots of other things going on and they're feeding on what algae they are feeding on in the summer. It's a different species that they're feeding on.
[11:35 - 11:40] You get little grassy notes in the summer and you start picking that up and that's kind of hidden in the winter.

Tiffany Eslick
[11:41 - 11:45] And is one bigger than the other one? Winter oysters bigger than the actual oysters?

Ramie Murray
[11:45 - 11:52] No, because we will grow them to a certain weight to classify the size so that doesn't change.

Tiffany Eslick
[11:52 - 11:58] How does the grading work? What's the top? I think it's number five, right? Five is the smallest.

Ramie Murray
[11:58 - 11:58] Smallest.

Other speaker
[11:58 - 11:58] Okay.

Ramie Murray
[11:59 - 12:34] We don't actually sell fives. We start at fours. So we're using the French numbering system. France is the biggest exporter of oysters in the world. And so most countries that have been importing are used to their numbering system. So we just went along with that. And it's a range. So a number four is the smallest one. And that will be 45 to 65 grams. Okay. And then the next size up at number three, 65 to 85 grams. And then the number twos, which is what we supply spinnies, are the bigger ones. And they will be anything from 85 to 115 grams.
[12:36 - 12:57] So that's why when you get a box of oysters, sometimes you'll see a slight difference in size. There'll be one bigger than the other. That's because it's this range. There should never be more of a difference than about 20 grams between them. We try and keep that a bit lower. Okay. And I think for spinnies as well, I think we supply them on the upper end of the twos. So they're normally averaging at least 100 grams.

Tiffany Eslick
[12:58 - 13:01] And the number one is when you just want one oyster as a meal. Yeah. Yeah.

Other speaker
[13:02 - 13:09] They're really becoming a standalone meal at that time. Yeah. We sell some number ones in the market and even some zeros, which are 150 grams.

Ramie Murray
[13:11 - 13:19] And that's mainly for cooking. For Chinese customers like that a lot because they have a real tradition of cooking the oysters.

Tiffany Eslick
[13:19 - 13:21] I like cooked oysters. Have you tried them?

Devina Divecha
[13:21 - 13:30] Yeah. No, I do. I do like them. I just want to ask with the size though, does how long you grow it affect the size or is it just... Yeah. Very simply, yes.

Other speaker
[13:30 - 13:31] Okay.

Ramie Murray
[13:31 - 13:43] But we are planting fresh batches of baby oysters or spat quite regularly throughout the year so that we have a constant supply so that we can harvest. Because we harvest a couple of times a week, every week.

Devina Divecha
[13:43 - 13:45] Right. Yeah. Like year on.

Ramie Murray
[13:45 - 14:25] Okay. So we're constantly planting new batches to make sure we've got a constant supply. And so within a batch that we'll plant, there will be a percentage that grows particularly fast, a percentage that grows a bit slower. And so we will get a range in a single batch, but the range isn't that much. So as a general rule, it is the age. And this is actually quite a fun fact about our oysters is because of the high food levels and the warm water that we have here, they grow really, really fast. And so in places like France, it'll take two or three years to get a market size oyster. In Scotland, where I'm originally from, five years.
[14:25 - 15:01] And this is a combination of the... They've got quite high food levels, but the water is so cold that they'll start hibernating in the winter, so they're not growing. Whereas ours grow full year round. So we have market size oysters in nine months. Wow. So it's remarkably quicker. Yeah. And this also leads into a lovely firm, but not tough texture. And it also means that large oysters that you get from other parts of the world are perhaps four or five years old, whereas the small oysters from other parts of the world are perhaps two and a half years old.
[15:01 - 15:16] Whereas because we have such a high growth rate, there's maybe only one month or two months difference between our big oysters and our medium sized oysters. So even our big ones still have this nice tender, but firm texture. So it's a little bit more of a firm flesh. Otherwise it would get a bit tough as they get older.

Devina Divecha
[15:17 - 15:19] And Tiff, you got to go recently, didn't you? Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[15:19 - 15:46] I love being out in Dibba. And we went out on the boat. Well, first of all, we started in the hatchery, which I just love. To see a baby... I think I sent you a picture saying like, look at the baby oyster. I didn't realize that baby or spat actually come in little shells. I mean, I didn't know what I thought they came in. They just grow a shell. But they're so cute. And you have millions of them. I love those that you're getting, right? We're bringing in millions at a time.

Ramie Murray
[15:47 - 16:18] They live in a little nursery. We've got our flow through nursery, which is just barrels and we're just pumping seawater. We keep it really simple and at no point do we feed them anything. We don't use any medications. We don't use any chemicals. It's all just natural. So we're pumping seawater through the barrel that they're sitting in and that's it. They're just feeding naturally. And what they find in the water. And then you just move them into sort of bigger barrels, right? As they get older.

Tiffany Eslick
[16:18 - 16:19] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[16:19 - 16:30] So they'll stay in those barrels and then once they get to a certain size, we're not even that big, like maybe five or six millimeters, we'll then transfer them into their lantern nets and send them out to the ocean. Yeah.

Devina Divecha
[16:31 - 16:39] You know, I was last there more than four years ago because it was before COVID that I showed up at the barbeque.

Ramie Murray
[16:39 - 16:40] Yeah.

Other speaker
[16:40 - 16:40] No.

Ramie Murray
[16:40 - 16:45] I think you came when we were still at our original site, I believe. I think so.

Other speaker
[16:45 - 16:48] Because I came with Arva and Farida from Fryingpan.

Devina Divecha
[16:48 - 16:54] They did like a little thing out there and then we went to the hotel and had like oysters and everything. Wow.

Ramie Murray
[16:54 - 17:02] That was a long time. Just to give you an idea of the... So back then we were operating out of, I think, three shipping containers.

Devina Divecha
[17:02 - 17:03] There were shipping containers. Yes.

Ramie Murray
[17:03 - 17:16] And since then we moved to another port. Yeah. And built up to about 15 or 18. Amazing. Shipping containers. And then we just moved again two years ago to what I like to call our final resting place. Okay.

Tiffany Eslick
[17:17 - 17:19] He's touching wood. So yeah.

Devina Divecha
[17:19 - 17:21] Yeah. So we'll all touch wood for you.

Ramie Murray
[17:21 - 17:40] So we've got our final resting place where I think we've got something like 40 shipping containers. Wow. It's like a little Lego city all connected together. Nice. Yeah. And so the last time you visited, we were producing around 20,000 oysters a month. Okay. December was our biggest month so far. And we sold over half a million. Wow. Half a million oysters. Yeah. That's amazing.

Other speaker
[17:40 - 17:41] Incredible.

Ramie Murray
[17:41 - 17:44] Yeah. So it's a bit of a larger operation. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[17:44 - 17:47] You need to go out there. Have a platter.

Ramie Murray
[17:47 - 17:50] Yeah. I know. Still quaint and artisanal. It is.

Tiffany Eslick
[17:50 - 17:51] It is. You've maintained that.

Devina Divecha
[17:56 - 18:00] What are the highlights from your visit if I really wanted to hear about that? Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[18:00 - 18:07] So I actually really enjoyed learning about your reef project. Yes. Yeah. Can you talk or tell Davina about that? Yes.

Devina Divecha
[18:07 - 18:09] Tell me. And our listeners. Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[18:09 - 18:10] Yeah. Yeah.

Other speaker
[18:10 - 18:10] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[18:10 - 18:47] So of course, we're producing all these oysters and just by producing them, it's good for the environment because they're automatically sequesting all this carbon as they build their shells. They're conditioning the water in the surrounding area and then the lanterns that they're hanging in form a temporary hanging reef with little bits of seaweed growing in the outside so fish can come in and feed on it, hide from predators. And so that's all wonderful. But we decided to take it to the next step. And we were looking for something we could do with the shells because right now, restaurants
[18:47 - 19:26] are just throwing them out, hotels are just throwing them out. And there are different known things you can do with these shells. So you can grind them up and use them in chicken feed. You can grind them up and use them in fertilizer. You can use them as an ingredient in concrete for building blocks. There's all sorts of cool things you can do. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing we decided to do with them is in the... We're talking about the baby oysters, the spat coming with little shells. They're actually born as larvae. And so in the wild, the larvae will swim around the water column, nature being nature, just getting munched by everything. So there's a very small survival rate.
[19:26 - 20:04] But what they look for is a little... They start growing their own shell and then they immediately look for something to attach onto, to stabilize themselves. And then they'll start really growing their shell. And their favorite thing to attach onto is an old shell. And so the traditional oyster farming in France, back in the day, there wasn't commercial hatcheries. And so what they would do is they would collect wild spat from the ocean. And so during the summer, you may have heard of the whole never eat oysters in a month without an R. Yeah. And so where that...
[20:04 - 20:08] I'll get back to the original story, a little side note on this one. Yeah. Yeah.

Other speaker
[20:09 - 20:09] Okay.

Ramie Murray
[20:09 - 20:47] So traditionally, you wouldn't eat oysters in the summer in Europe. And that's because the oysters go into their breeding cycle in the summer. And so they get all puffed up and they're not very good for eating. And then after they've completed their cycle, they're all depleted and because they burn lots of calories and energy. So they're just... So over that whole period, it's just traditionally you wouldn't eat them. So also in that period, because they're breeding, they're producing larvae, which is floating around in the currents. And so what farmers would do is they'd place out baskets of broken up old shells, and then the larvae would all magnet onto it.
[20:47 - 20:53] And then they were able to then transfer those into their farming operations. So they get sort of free, free span. Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[20:53 - 20:53] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[20:54 - 21:07] They don't do that so much anymore because there's quite a bit of disease along the coastline there. And so now... Which particularly affects baby oysters. So there's a real sort of move to buying them a little bit bigger.
[21:27 - 22:05] Anyway, back to the reef. Back. So the shell is a natural, perfect substrate for not just oysters, all shellfish, for their babies to attach onto to grow. So clever. So simply by putting a pile of these shells on the seabed in Dibba, automatically magnets in the larvae from the local pearl oysters, from the local scallops, the mussels, because there's lots of different shellfish there already. Yeah. So we did an experiment of just putting a section of just a pile of shells on the seabed. And it was incredible just how this just blossomed into life.
[22:06 - 22:41] And then so we had all the local shellfish, we've got coral growing on it, there's fish moving in. That's amazing. And so oyster reefs are the basis of marine environments. Everything else kind of goes from there. So we worked with the Fujairah government, and in particular the Environment Authority and Fujairah Research Center. And we got a big area set aside for us to build an oyster reef. And so we've got a 700 meter by 40 meter stretch off the coast of Dibba, where we are collecting back these shells from partner restaurants, from our own restaurants, and we're bagging
[22:41 - 23:06] them up into just simple mesh bags, and just using them as building blocks to just build a huge reef. And so we started that a few months ago, and we've got the initial section of the reef built already. And it's already just sort of blossoming with life. It's absolutely incredible. We'll be sharing some video and imagery in the next few weeks on our Instagram, just showing what's happening. That's so exciting.

Devina Divecha
[23:06 - 23:07] Yeah, it sounds brilliant.

Ramie Murray
[23:07 - 23:28] Yeah, it's a really fun project, and it's a really satisfying project to be part of because the thing with this is we'll build this reef, but then it'll be self-sustaining because there'll be the local oyster species will all be on it. And then they will start reproducing and then it all just builds on top of each other. Amazing.

Tiffany Eslick
[23:29 - 23:37] You know, you said that the pearl oysters, this might be an ignorant question. Can you eat a pearl oyster? You can eat a part of it.

Ramie Murray
[23:37 - 23:47] It's like, think of it as a scallop. You can cut the muscle out and eat that nodule. So that yeah, you can eat the muscle.

Tiffany Eslick
[23:47 - 24:01] Should I be diving and find myself a pearl oyster? No, no, I can eat it. When we come back. Everything is in the bag. Everything you need to know about storing and shucking oysters from the man himself. That's right after this short break.

Other speaker
[24:08 - 24:09] Welcome back.

Devina Divecha
[24:09 - 24:14] You're listening to Nourish by Spinneys and let's get right back into our conversation with Ramie Murray.

Tiffany Eslick
[24:16 - 24:29] I know that traceability is hugely important to you. How are you maintaining that control? Is it because it's a simple, well, I don't want to call it a simple farming method because there's a lot involved, but yeah, how are you in control?

Ramie Murray
[24:29 - 25:08] We have traceability baked in to our every move. It's simply, we have to know where every oyster is at every moment. Because we have such a fast growth period, we have to handle the oysters a lot. Because the oysters grow fast, but so do the predators, sort of like the snails and the crabs that like to float into the cage and eat them. And so we keep a close note of which hatch. Yeah. And as we buy in spat from international hatcheries, we're almost big enough now to be really thinking seriously about building our own hatchery, but we haven't done that quite. We haven't pushed the button on that quite yet.
[25:08 - 25:45] So for now we're buying in from hatcheries. And so we want to know how different batches are performing from different times of the year from different hatcheries. And then within every hatchery, there's different genetic lines. And so we work to see what works best here. And so we will note... We know when every oyster is born, where it's born, when it's been in our nursery, which we've got three different concessions offshore, which concession it was where. We have over 15,000 lanterns hanging in the ocean right now, and every lantern is tagged. And so we can track where every oyster is, where it's been, where it's going.
[25:46 - 26:01] And then when we harvest it, which tanks it's been deparated in and et cetera. And so every box of oysters that you buy, there will be a code on it. Yeah. And then when we get that code, we know the full history, the whole life history of that oyster. That's amazing.

Devina Divecha
[26:01 - 26:03] I was really impressed actually at the location.

Tiffany Eslick
[26:03 - 26:17] You see there's also a lab where they're doing quite aggressive testing. Not aggressive, but like really thorough testing and it was really impressive. Like you can just see like, yeah, your attention to detail is amazing. Food safety obviously has to be paramount.

Ramie Murray
[26:17 - 26:56] When you're eating an oyster, you're eating something raw. And it's not a good thing. And you're eating it whole. And so the added thing with shellfish is they're filter feeders. So when you're eating something raw and whole, and it's a filter feeder, if there is some sort of pollution in the water, it's sucked that in. So Northern Fujairah, the Dibba area, there is no heavy industry. There's very low population. It's pretty pristine. And so it was an ideal place to start. Yeah.
[26:56 - 27:35] So we've got this fantastic starting point of very clean water. But then we also deporate the oysters, which is holding them in tanks of sterilized water. Again, we don't use any chemicals. It's UV light we use to sterilize the water. And so these oysters, they suck all the sterilized water through their bodies, looking for food, of which there isn't in these tanks, and it will just purge them and empties their stomachs. And so if there is anything nasty in there, it gets purged out. But then on top of that. We do our own water safety testing, we do our own testing of the oysters. And then on top of that, we send out samples to government labs on a weekly basis.
[27:35 - 27:44] And so we're constantly doing our microbiological, our heavy metal, our biotoxins. We're testing for everything. Yeah, that is very thorough.

Tiffany Eslick
[27:44 - 28:08] It's good to know because people see a box of oysters and they think, if you're not, you know, a fay with oysters. You're like, yeah, is this safe to eat? Yeah. What should people do in store? When they walk in, they see this box, they've never bought oysters before. Buy them. The local ones. Look for the DiBavelo. How should they be storing them when they get home? How long should they sit in the fridge?

Ramie Murray
[28:09 - 28:49] So we put a best before date. We generally give about 12 days. They come in this lovely wooden box. I would say if you're taking them home, keep them in the wooden box. You don't need to transfer them to a tupperware box. You don't need to pack them in ice. In fact, that's detrimental. They don't like that. They're live animals. They're not a dead piece of fish. You want to keep them cool, not freezing. You don't need to put a wet cloth over them. Just keep them in their box. These wooden boxes soak up a lot of moisture and they produce a microclimate within the box. So they just want to be in a humid environment without actually getting wet.
[28:49 - 29:28] Because if they get wet, then they get confused. They think they're in the ocean and they start trying to open. And their metabolism speeds up. And then you get less shelf life. So just keep them in the fridge. And I think a tip is if you happen to have a second fridge, which maybe has some beverages in it that you are keeping at a higher temperature, the oysters are actually much happier closer to 10 degrees. So if you've got a fridge that's set on 7, 8 degrees by chance for a bottle of something, put the oysters in that fridge. They're still fine in the normal fridge. But if you just want to maximize the shelf life.
[29:28 - 30:07] Now, oysters are good to eat as long as they're still alive. So it doesn't matter if they're one day old or 12 days old. If you take the band off, because we've got these bands, and they're still closed, then they're still alive. Because if they're dead, then they stop contracting the muscle to keep the shell shut. So they're open. Now, remember, they're coming out of very cold conditions in the fridge. So they're going to be a bit sleepy. So if they're a bit open and you touch them, they might not immediately snap shut. But they might just very sleepily close. As long as there's movement and they're closing, they're still alive. They're animals. They've got an immune system.
[30:08 - 30:46] They've been purged. So they're still good to eat if they're still alive. Finally, I think a little tip as well is we have spent several days purging these. But we're also been chilling them down. And acclimatizing them because, of course, they're coming out of a very warm ocean. So what we do is we acclimatize them. We cool them down. And so they're actually in hibernation when you get them from the fridge. So if you take a box out and you let them warm up to room temperature, and then you decide you're not going to shuck them all, you're not going to eat them all and put them back in the fridge, you've gone down, up, down, up.
[30:46 - 31:05] And you've broken the cold chain. You've woken them up. They're not hibernating anymore. Then they're all stressed because they've warmed up. And then you put them back at two degrees. So just very simply, if you've bought a huge box and you don't think you're going to eat them all, just take out what you want to shuck and eat and leave the rest in the fridge. And when you're serving them, is it fine to put them on the ice like that?

Tiffany Eslick
[31:05 - 31:10] Yeah, you must. You should put them. The second you've shucked the oyster, it's now dead.

Ramie Murray
[31:11 - 31:49] So it's now a raw piece of seafood. And so you need to view it the same way you would like a piece of sushi. So you should put it on ice. Ideally consume immediately. I would say consume within an hour or so, max. And keep it on the ice. And then if you're doing a party or a big dinner party or something, and you're going to use the same dish to serve them, if the ice is all melted, you need to chuck that and redo the ice. Because if the ice melts and the oysters then kind of mix with them, even though you've finished those oysters and you put the fresh ones,
[31:50 - 31:55] it's not good, 100%. So just dump the whole lot, re-ice it, re-present it.

Devina Divecha
[31:56 - 32:02] Do you have a favorite way of eating them? I am always up for a different way of eating them.

Ramie Murray
[32:03 - 32:42] I, of course, love a plain oyster, the traditional vinaigrette. I'm quite proud of these winter and summer sauces which we developed. We're also doing cooked oysters now. I saw it as a way to get people that were a bit iffy about oysters, to try them. But then, now that we've gone down that road, we've got a couple of different types that we serve here. And then at our other outlet at the Sheraton in JBR, we've got six different types. And it's really interesting. And I think the key to cooked oysters is to not do anything too overpowering.
[32:42 - 33:06] Because it's very easy to overpower the delicate taste of an oyster. And also for the purists out there, just view it as something different. You've got your raw oysters, which are great. And then this is just something different. Because cooking intensifies the flavor of the oyster, I find. Yeah. When I go camping, I like to cook oysters.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:06 - 33:07] You do it on the barbecue? Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[33:07 - 33:18] Because the thing is, if you can get the barbecue hot enough, and then you put the oysters directly on it, they will steam in their own juice and burst open. And it's almost like an oyster stock.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:18 - 33:19] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[33:19 - 33:21] It really intensifies the flavor.

Other speaker
[33:21 - 33:22] It sounds like you're glamping more than camping with your oysters.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:23 - 33:32] Yeah. Yes. I'll come camping with you. That's great. I also like them crumbed. Yeah. That's really good. Have you tried this?

Devina Divecha
[33:32 - 33:32] Yes, I have.

Ramie Murray
[33:33 - 33:36] Crumbed and deep fried does work for most things. Most things. Yes.

Devina Divecha
[33:36 - 33:36] Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:36 - 33:37] For sure. Most things.

Devina Divecha
[33:37 - 33:38] Yes.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:40 - 33:46] Now, we did promise you a little shucking tutorial. So pop on over to our social media channels to have a look.

Devina Divecha
[33:46 - 33:53] And I actually did not know, by the way, that you have to flip over. You have to flip the oyster while shucking it. It's so important for the eating experience.

Tiffany Eslick
[33:54 - 33:56] But apparently not everyone is a fan of that.

Ramie Murray
[33:56 - 34:02] We're flying over the Guinness World Record holder of oyster shucking. Okay.

Tiffany Eslick
[34:02 - 34:06] How many oysters per minute? Oh, I shouldn't have brought that up without knowing that.

Ramie Murray
[34:07 - 34:09] 39 in a minute.

Tiffany Eslick
[34:09 - 34:09] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[34:09 - 34:11] 39 oysters in a minute.

Devina Divecha
[34:11 - 34:12] That's a lot of oysters in a minute.

Ramie Murray
[34:13 - 34:26] Yeah. This is Patrick. Okay. He handles the Patty Shucker. He did it with, I think, with Gordon Ramsay. Okay. And he did it on YouTube. And he just had this line. And he just went along and opened them in a minute. Amazing. Anyway, the reason I bring that up-

Devina Divecha
[34:26 - 34:27] Did we make you do that? Him?

Tiffany Eslick
[34:27 - 34:30] Yeah. Could be another.

Ramie Murray
[34:30 - 34:34] Yeah. That could be hilarious, actually. I'll be like two and a broken finger.

Tiffany Eslick
[34:35 - 34:35] Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[34:35 - 34:50] But the reason I bring that up is he's against flipping it. Oh, right. Because he's this professional shucker. Yeah. And it's like an insult that you need to flip it. Because I flip it to make sure it's been properly detached.

Tiffany Eslick
[34:50 - 34:57] And just to make it easier to eat. Yeah. Whereas when I asked him to flip it and he was like brutally offended, he was just like,

Other speaker
[34:57 - 34:58] of course it's detached.

Tiffany Eslick
[35:00 - 35:00] Okay.

Ramie Murray
[35:00 - 35:08] So just in case you're in the presence of a master shucker, don't ask him to flip it. Okay. Good to know. Good life's point.

Other speaker
[35:09 - 35:09] No. Yeah.

Ramie Murray
[35:10 - 35:35] Talking about that balance, you can have the same brand of oyster at different times of the year. We'll have different levels of salinity and sweetness. Yeah. So even if you know that brand of oyster, you should always have the first one plain. Okay. And then be thinking about how the sweetness is interacting with the salinity. Yes. Yeah. And then the next one, you add a little bit. Okay. A little bit of lemon or a little bit of vinaigrette.

Devina Divecha
[35:35 - 35:39] So for that one, what would you add, for example? How would you like to have that one? Well, you know what?

Other speaker
[35:39 - 35:41] Ours are pretty good on their own. They're very well balanced already.

Ramie Murray
[35:42 - 36:16] So I like to cycle. This is why we serve all three. Yeah. I like to have a little bit of all of them. The traditional French red grape vinaigrette with chopped shallots, it's a tradition for a reason. Yeah. It's really good. And it works very well. So I'm a big fan of the vinaigrette. And the ones that we've developed are variations on this. It's a vinaigrette. Our winter one has got a bit of chili in it as well. Oh, yeah. And I always forget, is it cumin or turmeric? Turmeric. Yeah.
[36:16 - 36:27] So we've got turmeric and a little bit of chili that has a little bit of spice to it. And it has that acidity and it has that kick. So I like them all. Yeah.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:27 - 36:28] And that's okay.

Other speaker
[36:28 - 36:28] It's good.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:28 - 36:29] That is perfectly fine.

Ramie Murray
[36:30 - 36:31] Oh, well, thank you.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:32 - 36:34] Could you open them all now, please? And we'll time you.

Ramie Murray
[36:35 - 36:37] Yeah. We need a... Here's one I did earlier.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:37 - 36:40] Yeah. Can I try opening one?

Other speaker
[36:40 - 36:41] Oh, no.

Devina Divecha
[36:42 - 36:44] Well, we still have a question to ask Tiff. Oh, yes, we do.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:45 - 36:46] I forget this every time.

Devina Divecha
[36:46 - 36:50] I could see Chirag, our producer's eyes just go like...

Tiffany Eslick
[36:50 - 36:52] Don't forget the question.

Devina Divecha
[36:53 - 36:54] Do you want to? Okay. Go on.

Ramie Murray
[36:54 - 36:55] I'll ask.

Tiffany Eslick
[36:55 - 37:00] So our podcast is called Nourish, and we like to ask everybody, what nourishes your soul?

Ramie Murray
[37:00 - 37:28] What nourishes my soul? Genuinely, I think you probably heard the passion and excitement when I was talking about the reef earlier. Yeah. And I feel really blessed and lucky that I'm able to be running this business and producing a gourmet food, which is healthy and sustainable. But then now that we're getting the chance to actually build a marine environment, I find that really satisfying. Great.

Tiffany Eslick
[37:28 - 37:31] Yeah. Something so much bigger than what you started off with.

Ramie Murray
[37:31 - 37:39] Yeah. And it'll be there hopefully long after I'm gone because oyster reefs are self-sustaining and they'll just build on top of itself and it'll keep growing.

Tiffany Eslick
[37:40 - 37:41] Oh, fantastic. That's lovely.

Devina Divecha
[37:41 - 37:43] Thanks, Rémi. Yeah. Thank you.

Tiffany Eslick
[37:48 - 38:12] This episode was brought to you by Spinneys and is hosted by me, Tiffany Eslick, and Devina Divecha. We're produced by Chirag Desai. Don't forget to follow Spinneys on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for more. You can also visit us at spinneys.com, where you can shop for fresh produce, including number two oysters from Dibba Bay, you can ask our fishmonger to shuck them for you as well if you'd like, and a variety of local and exclusive products.

Devina Divecha
[38:12 - 38:15] We'll be back in a couple of weeks with a new episode. See you then.

Other speaker
[38:15 - 38:16] Bye.