Mica Verbrugge
Born and bred in Port Alberni, Mica Verbrugge owns and operates Effingham Oysters. The pandemic in 2020 resulted in an expansion to his business, Eat Canadian Seafood, providing no frills seafood to Port Alberni, Nanaimo, Victoria and the Lower Mainland.
Mica’s earliest memories include going to his papa’s (grandfather) cabin a short 10 minute boat ride from his current farm. Mica and his papa collected wild oysters, fished, prawned and crabbed. Mica credits his papa for installing a life long love of seafood and the sea.
Mica worked over 50 commercial fishing jobs in 3 countries, before transitioning to shellfish. He captained spot prawn and tuna boats prior to switching full time to oysters in 2014.
Crew
Oyster dogs
Dear Mica Verbrugge,
You may not yet have heard about our New Zealand based company. We have developed a new oyster grow-out technology called TOPS Oysters™. We have just started to commercialize the system and are looking into whether there are any BC growers which may benefit from adopting the technology. From your website info I believe TOPS may be perfectly suited for your deep water sites.
Different to current technology, with the TOPS system oysters are grown on a tag without crowding, each oyster perfectly spaced to each other. . With individual spacing and self orientation the shape, meat condition and shell quality is superior. The customizable label on which the oyster is grown also becomes part of the shell. These individually labelled oysters provide highest quality guarantees in the marketplace and can be used to differentiate product for value adding. While originally developed for continuous longline culture, with various suspension methods possible the system can be readily adapted to many different growing environments.
For more information check out http://www.topsoysters.com and if you are interested or have any questions I’d love to hear from you!
Kind regards,
Niklas Janke