One question often asked is why Whitstable holds its festival when the native oyster is out of season. We all know the old adage that you should ‘Only eat oysters if there is an R in the month’, and it is certain that the most important date in the oyster industry is September 1st when the oyster season begins.

So why hold an Oyster Festival when Whitstable Oysters are either unavailable or in short supply?

The reason, quite simply, is tradition. This period was the holiday period for the Oyster Dredgers and coincided with St. James’s Day on July 25th, so their celebrations were based around this day. Their yawls and smacks were used to give day visitors trips around the bay thus setting the basis for today’s Festival. Plus it gives our visitors a good reason to come back to the town again, later in the year!

Many thousands of oysters are consumed during the Festival but not all of these are Whitstable oysters in the true sense of the word. This is because indigenous Rock oysters spawn between April and August with some variation according to water temperatures. Spawn, or spat, is the milky substance that contains the millions of baby oysters and makes the oysters unpalatable. Pacific or European oysters, when growing in the colder waters around Whitstable, do not spawn, so they can be eaten throughout the year but the local ones are in short supply and much sought after.

So, what makes a Whitstable Oyster? That’s easy to answer as the term is an EU protected geographical indication name:

Whitstable Oysters

Shellfish of the species Ostrea edulis (Native oyster) and Crassostrea gigas (cultivated European oyster) the meat of which is fat and succulent.

Broodstock taken from the sea off Whitstable. Oyster spat raised in a hatchery on a diet of microscopic algae. At 3mm transferred to an outside nursery to acclimatise. When they have grown to sufficient size they are laid off on the oyster beds. After 3 - 5 years of growing the fully grown oysters are collected from the beds during Spring tides. They are washed, graded and placed in depuration tanks for 2 days. Then rinsed in fresh water and packed.

To analyse this description:

• Broodstock - Oysters ready to spawn when the conditions are right.

• Raised in a hatchery - This method was pioneered locally and ensures quantity, quality and avoids young oysters being subjected to disease and predators.

• Time growing on the oyster beds - This is where the oyster becomes a Whitstable Oyster. The conditions at Whitstable and Seasalter give these oysters the fat and succulent meat that makes them what are generally regarded as the best oysters and the Whitstable Natives the cream of the crop.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries the cultivation left more to chance as the amount of spat produced was affected by weather conditions which could also spread the spat over a wide area away from the beds. The oysters that grew from this ‘lost’ spat were harvested by independent dredgermen who sold it back to the oyster companies. These oysters were still classed as Whitstable Oysters.

To supplement the nursery beds, when spat production was particularly low, spat and young brood were brought in from other areas including Colchester and from beds in France. Once again the time these oysters spent growing on the Whitstable beds made them Whitstable Oysters.

Although the Whitstable companies traded widely there was much distrust between fisheries. The pillaging of the Whitstable beds by outsiders not only increased this feeling by the townspeople but also led to the protection of the Whitstable beds by passing the ownership of them and the beach to the Free Fishers and Dredgermen of Whitstable, confirmed by royal grant in 1793. Thus this co-operative were able to guard the beds and litigate against others who dared to pass their inferior oysters off as Whitstable Natives to get a higher market price.

In 1897 the falling demand for oysters and the high costs of supporting retired dredgermen and the widows of dredgermen forced the cooperative to apply for an Act of Parliament which then set up the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company that exists today and still owns much of the Whitstable beach and foreshore.

The Whitstable Oyster Festival Association recognise this and appreciate the permission of the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company in allowing the use of its beaches for many of the Festival events.