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By ROB HEDELT, The Free Lance-Star FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Watermen didn’t need to read the news on Friday, March 13, to know something wicked was coming their way.That’s the week when people who make a living raising, harvesting and selling local seafood saw their spring seasons go from stellar to sunk thanks to the novel coronavirus.Tom Perry of White Stone Oyster Co. said there was nothing subtle about the effect the virus had on his Lancaster County business.“Once the restaurants started closing, it was like somebody completely shut off the waterspout that was our wholesale business,” he said. “We went from our best week ever to zero wholesale orders.”Perry said the toughest thing about the virus-slowed season is that the beginning of March was shaping up to be his best season ever.“The past couple of years, we opened up a direct-to-consumer option,” he said, “I started that largely because friends and family were always pestering me for oysters, and it became a pain to take down addresses. So we created a website where people can do that themselves.”Then the virus hit, and White Stone Oyster’s wholesale orders ceased.“We shifted and found there were customers who wanted to have fresh oysters shipped straight to them,” he said. “I think some of the demand is people wanting to have something special, a little piece of normalcy, being able to enjoy eating oysters with friends and family.”An internal memo of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, shared with the Daily Press in Hampton Roads, puts potential revenue loss for the state’s seafood industry from March through June this year between $53 million and $68 million, “due to a near 90 percent decrease in market demand.”There are a few rays of hope, as some seafood companies are seeing strong demand for takeout orders of steamed crabs in a season so far slowed by weather.“We’ve had a big demand for crabs,” said Stuart O’Bier at O’Bier Seafood in Callao.He said their diverse offerings have helped keep the business afloat, despite a serious drop in sales to restaurants. He thinks the state’s stay-at-home orders might be fueling the demand for crabs.“For some, it’s the weekend every day, and there’s no better way to kill some time than enjoying a bushel of crabs,” he said. “I think people are appreciating this time together as families.”Wayne France, who lives on the Potomac River in Westmoreland County’s Chatham Village, said he didn’t need a government report to know that trouble was coming.“We started seeing it around the end of February, once this virus got rolling,” he said. “Fish prices fell by 75 to 80 percent. And the market for oysters—huge in restaurants and in oyster bars on the half shell—went to nothing, also. Right now, it’s still bad and not showing much sign of improvement.”France, who fishes, crabs and harvests oysters, said he was catching rockfish when the virus hit.“We were getting from $4 to $4.50 a pound,” he said. That price quickly fell to $1 or less. “The folks I sell to asked me to slack up on fishing, because the rock were hard to sell. Typically you hope that a good rockfish season will carry you until the crabbing picks up,” he said, “but not this year.”France is hopeful the demand for crabs and oysters will rise when restaurants slowly start opening. But he worries that it will take a while before customers will feel safe coming back.“Either way, I’ve got 500 crab pots ready and will soon have them out,” he said.Taryn and Aaron Rowland, operating under the name Rogue Oysters, have an oyster farm at Greenvale Marina in Lancaster County. The couple who put “spat on shell” juvenile oysters out to grow in cages in the Rappahannock River wish they didn’t already know so much about the ups and downs of the seafood business.The Rowlands, who previously lived in Alexandria, got excited about growing oysters through an erosion control project at her grandmother’s waterside home in Middlesex County. Their company got off to a good start in 2017 growing oysters—which takes about 18 months from start to finish—but took losses from heavy rains and floods in 2018. Now they’re sitting on some 30,000 oysters ready to sell at a time when wholesale demand has dried up.Like White Stone Oyster Co., they’re pivoting to selling directly to consumers. But instead of shipping them, the couple is setting up delivery days in different Virginia cities where buyers can get them dropped off in coolers in their open car trunks.“Selling directly to consumers this way pays better than wholesale,” said Taryn Rowland. “It’s always been a part of our mission to feed families. We like the idea of selling to people who can then enjoy them in their homes.”Tommy Kellum of Kellum Seafood in Weems, which operates an oyster shucking house and sells oysters harvested from its own grounds, said his company sells directly to grocery stores and markets, and to food service companies that supply restaurants.He said virus-related shutdowns have been “extremely detrimental on our food-service side: an 88 percent decrease so far.”Kellum said the decrease hit quick and hard.“A 48 percent decrease in just three days,” he said. “We had customers that had product on the road to them who cancelled so we brought it back. It was a solid bloodbath that first week.”On the positive side, he said the first two weeks of March had been strong for sales, as was the entire 2019 season.“There’s no need for crying over spilt milk, as we had a bit of a cushion from a strong year last year,” said Kellum.He said his company filled a big order out of Georgia last weekend in preparation for restaurants reopening there.“While seafood doesn’t always allow itself to be a takeout item, we’ve had some customers, like the Captain D’s restaurants in Richmond and Fredericksburg, doing well with it,” he said.Mike Hutt, the executive director of the Virginia Marine Products Board, said it’s been hard to hear that some of the hard-working watermen and seafood processors and distributors have seen their business drop off by 80 to 100 percent.“We’re asking Virginians to support these commercial watermen who have been out there for us year after year, as well as the processors and distributors,” said Hutt. “Your can do that buying from watermen directly, from grocery stores and seafood markets or from restaurants doing takeout. The livelihood of an awful lot of people will depend on it.”

Virginia's seafood industry hit hard by the coronavirus