Oyster farmers on the New South Wales south coast are gearing up for what could be their busiest Christmas in years. Following successive harvests marred by bushfires, Covid, and floods conditions are finally right for a bumper summer.
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00:00It's the busiest time of the year for NSW oyster farmer Shane Buckley.
00:07The two weeks in the lead up to Christmas are just nuts, whatever you've got you can sell.
00:11And this summer he has plenty to sell, more than 3,000 a day, in what's shaping up as the industry's biggest festive season for years.
00:19I'm feeling very excited, we haven't had a good Christmas since 2017.
00:24Farmers say they've avoided the heavy falls that forced many of them to close for harvest in previous years.
00:30We have had the run of bushfires and COVID and floods, so yeah we really are looking forward to having a smooth run.
00:37So I'm hoping it's our biggest year yet, we've got plenty of fresh oysters that we're bringing in daily to harvest.
00:43Many oysters from other suppliers will end up here at the Sydney Fish Market, where the going rate is around $30 a dozen.
00:50We are expecting over 100,000 people to walk through our doors between 5am on the 23rd to 5pm on the 24th Christmas Eve.
00:58We're expecting to trade almost 70,000 dozen oysters during our 36 hour seafood marathon.
01:04Restaurants are also hoping for a steady supply.
01:07A lot of people come from Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne to experience the oysters.
01:12It's really important to have on the menu because the amount of people that do come for the oysters is actually pretty amazing.
01:19There's a sense of confidence amongst oyster farmers heading into Christmas, given seasonal conditions are in their prime.
01:25But they're keeping their fingers crossed in the hope that there's not too much more rain on the horizon.
01:30It's probably the first summer in I'd say seven years where it looks like everything's lining up.
01:36We're looking for the good times and this is what this year's going to be.
01:39And dozen to dozen oysters sound good.
01:41And there we go.