We farm in the pristine waters of Tomales Bay’s coastal estuary.
The health of the Bay is critical to our industry. Our aim is to minimize our environmental impact by farming sustainably.
Water Quality
We work closely with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Shellfish Program to monitor the water quality of Tomales Bay and to ensure our oysters' safety for consumption. We also collaborate with the Tomales Bay Watershed council to monitor and protect the waters of Tomales Bay.
Reducing waste
At TBOC we see our role as farmer-stewards. One of the challenges we face with a farm as old as TBOC is systematically replacing old hardware with newer, long-lasting sustainable products. This includes using durable reusable materials for farm infrastructure, recycling materials that are no longer usable, and minimizing the use of single-use plastics.
Community clean-ups
We partner with neighboring oyster farms in regularly collecting waste in and around Tomales Bay. In our quarterly bay clean-up, we have removed pounds of trash, household waste and debris dumped illegally along the shoreline of Tomales Bay. At least once a week we clean the shore along with our leases.
Reduce plastics
Our initiatives to limit plastic use at the farm include providing reusable water bottles for our staff to replace single-use plastic water bottles. We no longer purchase plastic packaged toilet paper because little things matter.
Reuse materials
Our crew washes and reuse work gloves for as long as they last. We are replacing the plastic net bags as much as possible in our storage tanks with refillable crates and we ask our customers and restaurants to bring the plastic net bags back to us and we wash and reuse them.
You can help
Since 2019 we no longer provide plastic bags with purchases. Instead, we ask our customers to bring their coolers. Coolers are a better way to keep oysters fresh and this reduces single-use plastics. Although this has taken a while to catch on, we see progress every day.