Taylor Shellfish Company

Taylor Shellfish Company is an American seafood company based in Shelton, Washington. It is the country's largest producer of aquaculture (farmed) shellfish and has locations across Western Washington. The Taylor family started raising Olympia oysters in the 1920s. In the current form, the company, privately held,[1] was started in 1969[2] as Taylor United by brothers Edwin and Justin Taylor, grandsons of James Y. Waldrip, an early Washingtonian who came to Seattle to work rebuilding after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 before moving south and founding the Olympia Oyster Company in the 1890s.[3][4][5][6] Waldrip's company farmed the Olympia oyster found only in South Puget Sound.[7] Justin Taylor, born 1921, the oldest oyster farmer on Puget Sound in the early 2000s, died in 2011.[8][9][10]

Taylor Shellfish Company
IndustrySeafood
Founded1969 
Headquarters
Shelton, Washington
,
United States
ProductsOysters, clams, mussels, geoduck
Number of employees
480 (2010)
Websitetaylorshellfishfarms.com
A Taylor Shellfish Farms store in Samish, Washington

Taylor Shellfish harvests more than 2,000,000 pounds (910,000 kg) of clams annually as of the 2010s;[11] 30% of the company's sales were in-shell oysters as of 2005.[12] As of the late 1990s the company was one of the top ten employers in Mason County, Washington, and farmed oyster beds at their Oakland Bay headquarters and elsewhere around Hood Canal and Puget Sound including Totten Inlet (Oyster Bay), Eld Inlet, Samish Bay, Willapa Bay, and Whidbey Island.[5] By 2010, the company had 480 employees and annual revenue over $50 million.[6]

The company has operated oyster bars under the Taylor Shellfish Farms brand since 2014.[2] Three are in Seattle including Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square,[13] one in Downtown Bellevue beginning late 2017;[14][15] and there are farm stores on Chuckanut Drive in Skagit County,[16][17] and in Shelton.

References
  1. Bloomberg corporate profile, retrieved 2017-10-31
  2. Jessica Hathaway (August 14, 2017), "Growth spurt: Taylor Shellfish Co. shows no signs of slowing", National Fisherman, Diversified Communications
  3. Walsh 2009, p. 191.
  4. Connie Adams (February 2017), "Taylor Shellfish Farms: Ebb and flow", Seattle Dining!, Mixed Media Publishing
  5. Shelby Gilje (March 11, 1998), "Shell Game – Oysters Are At The Top Of The Food Chain At Taylor Shellfish In Shelton", The Seattle Times
  6. Dana Neuts (December 2010), "Family Business Awards: Large Companies", Seattle Business
  7. Walsh 2009, p. 193.
  8. Bart Ripp (November 7, 2003), "Oyster Mogul Has Spent 51 Years Building a Niche in Washington's Puget Sound", Tacoma News Tribune, archived from the original on November 7, 2017 – via HighBeam (subscription required)
  9. "Justin Taylor obituary", The Daily Olympian, February 24, 2011, retrieved 2017-10-31 – via legacy.com
  10. "Modest shellfish mogul, environmental pioneer; Justin Taylor, 1921-2011; Obituary", The Seattle Times, February 23, 2011
  11. Taylor Shellfish Farms, Food Network, accessed 2017-10-31
  12. Choy Leng Yeong (October 8, 2005), "Local oyster growers get boost from Katrina", The Seattle Times
  13. Nims 2016, p. 213.
  14. Lauren Foster (January 24, 2017), "New to Lincoln Square", 425 Magazine
  15. Rosin Saez (October 31, 2017), "So Many New Places Are Opening in the Lincoln Square Expansion", Seattle Met
  16. Meredith Bethune (September 12, 2014), "Best oyster bars in America", Travel & Leisure
  17. Helen Anders (August 7, 2013), "Aw, shucks! An oyster-lover's tour of the Northwest", Austin American-Statesman – via The Seattle Times

Book sources
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