OUR ESTABLISHMENT
A FAMILY STORY
Oyster farmers for 3 generations, our company was founded in 1948, and since then our know-how has been passed on from father to son.
Nowadays we produce our oysters from the catching at sea to the packaging stage.
Since June 1st 2013, Raphaël took over the breeding part of his father Gilles and created his own company, the SCEA RAPHAËL MASSE, which sells its production to the SCEA GILLES MASSE. For his part, Gilles retains the maturing and shipping part.
SCEA RAPHAËL MASSE employs 12 people between Brittany (Paimpol) and Marennes-Oleron (Dolus d'Oléron), while SCEA GILLES MASSE employs 8 people all year round and about 80 to 90 seasonal workers during the Christmas and New Year period.
OUR ESTABLISHMENT
Our company is located in Marennes-Oléron, the French oyster area most renowned for the quality of its oysters. It masters the entire oyster production chain: catching, breeding, maturing and shipping.
On the production site in Oléron, our establishment includes :
- Surface area of the establishment: 1100m2
- 3 storages tanks with a total storage capacity of 60 tonnes
- 1 purifying tank approved as a purifying establishment since 2012
- For the finishing of our oysters, we use 20 hectares of watery ponds, on a total surface of 30 hectares.
- We have 15 hectares of oyster bred farms, called parks, in the Marennes-Oléron area and 9 hectares in Brittany.
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The Massé companies produce and finish Crassostrea gigas oysters, with an annual production of around 400 tonnes for a marketing of around 800 tonnes (50% of which are sold during the end-of-year festive period).
Production: provided by SCEA RAPHAËL MASSE
The oyster reproduces naturally in the summer in the Marennes Oléron basin.
Each oyster lays at least one million eggs, which once fertilised become larvae.
They settle in 15 days and become the "spat". The collectors (tubes, cups...) are placed in the parks where the young oyster settles, starts to feed and grow.
The year following its birth, the oyster is detached from its collector, this is the detaching process.
Once detached, the oyster is placed in parks. It will remain there for 2 years.
It will be moved from one park to another in order to be bathed by different currents.
The role of the tides and the quality of the park are very important.
Maturing: provided by SCEA GILLES MASSE
Finishing in claires (former salt marshes restructured and fed by the tidal cycle) consists of depositing the oysters according to a specific time and density for each oyster quality. The very mineral and nutrient-rich claires allows the development of the oyster's food, phytoplankton.
Some claires develop an alga called "blue navicula" which naturally pigments the oyster's gills and gives it its green colour.
finishing allows the oyster to hold up better out of the water and to be better preserved. The outside of the shell is free of parasites and the inside is pearly again.Refining allows us to obtain a very specific meat content, texture and flavour, less bitter and iodized. (See ours products)
Shipping: insured by SCEA GILLES MASSE
All the sorting, packaging and storage rooms in the factory are in accordance with European standards.
Thanks to a very sophisticated traceability software (CClaire), we guarantee maximum reliability of our products to our customers.
We sell between 800 and 900 tonnes of products a year. During the festive season, our packaging capacity is 40 to 65 tonnes per day.
The SCEA GILLES MASSE markets its products mainly to supermarkets, wholesalers, fishmongers and restaurants, both in France and abroad.
