About a year ago, Jolie Pearl Oyster Bar began selling a new, expensive oyster that they refuse to chargrill because of its premium taste.
“They are by far the best I’ve ever had,” says Eric Carnegie, an oyster aficionado and co-owner of the downtown Baton Rouge restaurant that specializes in high-quality oysters from all U.S. coasts and Canada. “They’ve exceeded expectations. I’ve had people say, ‘You’ve ruined other oysters for me ever since I tried these.’”
As Business Report details in a feature in the current issue, the oysters have become a signature item since they first appeared on the restaurant’s menu—so much so that the restaurant has actually made them its namesake offering, coining them “The Jolie Pearl” oysters.
Perhaps most interesting about the oysters isn’t their unique taste—described as “mildly briny, with a sweet finish” on the Jolie Pearl menu—or their quick success, but their source: A husband and wife team of LSU biology professors who have adopted a new method for raising oysters that delivers a higher-quality product that can be brought to market about three times faster than traditional farming.
When Steve Pollock and his wife Ginger Brininstool aren’t teaching biology courses in Baton Rouge, they’re in Grand Isle tending to 300 floating cages in Caminada Bay where they raise and harvest thousands of oysters.
The couple, with the help of their two children, are the sole operators of Triple N Oyster Farm. They’re new to the business, and Pollock doesn’t really consider himself an oyster connoisseur. But he says their alternative, off-bottom method of growing oysters in floating containers produces a superior product.
Sales figures certainly support his claim. He sold about 300 oysters per month after the first batch was harvested in February 2016. A year later, he’s selling more than 5,500 during an average month.
Sales have been boosted by Mansurs on the Boulevard, which became the second restaurant to feature his oysters on the menu in February. Triple N also sells directly to customers in Grand Isle, and in February it sold a monthly record of 5,700 oysters.
What makes the oysters special is the breed and alternative growing method. Triple N’s oysters are triploids, or “all-season” oysters, which are bred to be sterile. Pollock explains that because they don’t waste time making seeds or mating, they tend to stay fat and full year-round, especially in the summer.
They also take only six to seven months to go from seed to market. This is unheard of compared to traditional oysters, which take two to three years to grow to harvest size. Also, traditional oysters spawn in the summer and, as the saying goes, should only be eaten in months that include an “R”—September through April.
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