History
There is no quick summary here.. The years it took for The Salty Farmer to become established in industry are all part of the story. It’s best to break it up by geography!
New Jersey
Jeremy J. Esposito grew up in Asbury Park and just so happened to be enamored by the Ocean. He spent his younger years outdoors where collected and categorized verts and inverts in the Spring and Summer months. The cold months he spent in the garage where he learned woodworking, turned wrenches, and contributed to house projects. In college he learned that fisheries needed support in order to be sustainable, and wanted to contribute to a solution. All told: Jeremy is a biologist with a passion and skillset for applied science.
New Haven
A foundation of BS in marine biology + business administration gave Jeremy a license to explore the maritime industries. While at University, Jeremy studied dietary preferences of the American Horseshoe Crab, a cryptic and handsome invertebrate, at NOAA’s NMFS at Milford. Here he sought mentorship from Dr. Sheila Stiles and took on a voluntary internship cleaning tanks and inventorying animals for her scallop studies. Jeremy pursued more opportunity and landed a second internship at the nation’s first maritime themed career technical education (CTE) school, The Sound School, as a lab tech - he still cleaned tanks, but more importantly he gained hands-on experience in aquaculture. He was hooked.
Long Island Sound
In June 2009 Jeremy dove into the deep end and began farming at Fishers Island Oyster Farm under Steve & Sarah Malinowski, OGs of the East Coast oyster industry. Here, Jeremy learned the hardships of farming & was a student to a vertically integrated farm - he grew salty and the moniker The Salty Farmer came to life. As a side gig he began shucking front-of-house at The Oyster Club, which began his career as professional oyster shucker. He shucked side-by-side with his soon to be business partner, Chris Sherman; together they began building a small hobby farm, Six Penny Oysters, out of the then Noank Oyster Cooperative. This venture established itself as a feed-farm for The Oyster Club at the time, but has now changed hands to new farmers as Jeremy moved away from farming to focus development on hatchery sciences.
NYC
As a next step, and one towards growth, he found himself building out a 600 sq ft restoration hatchery for The Billion Oyster Project and a complimentary high school aquaculture program for The New York Harbor School. The Salty Farmer was a founding employee of BOP, under Peter Malinowski, and for five years he developed curriculum, ran programming, and led oyster production with the help of high school students and college interns. He conditioned, spawned, and reared larvae to set in NYC’s waters and from there led a team to propagate BOP’s first 30 million oysters as spat-on-shell for deployment in New York Harbor (not counting NYHF’s originals ; ).
While with BOP, Jeremy obtained his 100 ton coastal captains license through USCG, and became an AAUS scientific diver through the NYHS’s dive program.
Norwalk
As another NYC-oriented gig, Jeremy struck a relationship with the now new owners of the Noank Oyster Cooperative (where he ran Six Penny Oysters from). The new owners: Jimmy & Norman Bloom of Copps Island Oyster Farm had big aspirations to develop the co-op into a seed production facility, and also develop a remote set facility on New Haven’s Quinnipiac River. The Salty Farmer was hired to begin proof of concept for a new remote setting facility. After two years, gains in remote set gave lust for a hatchery, and plans began to develop for a new build out. It would be years before ground was broken and valves were turned on the new planned hatchery, so The Salty Farmer decided to take the opportunity to continue developing his shellfish knowledge & skill set.
Seattle
The PNW had it - rich in science and technology from hubs like UW and NOAA, there seemed to be much to learn. In 2018 The Salty Farmer leapt to Seattle to take on the role of Hatchery & Research Manager for Pacific Hybreed, a biotech start up focused on breeding for resilience & yield in Pacific Shellfish species. Jeremy worked to establish a functioning hatchery on the NOAA NMFS Manchester grounds to facilitate program-focused, grant-funded work as well production of the Pacific Oyster, Manila Clam, Geoduck, and The Purple Hinged Rock Scallop.
Kona
In 2020 The Salty Farmer spearheaded another facility in Kona’s NELHA host park, for Pacific Hybreed. He worked with Dave Mowry, now hatchery manager of Taylor Shellfish, to build out a second multi-purposed laboratory to scale up company goals. Here they would begin to host larval, seed rearing, and grow-out for up to 50x unique families as one cohort. Once Kona was built and running, Jeremy became Director of Hatchery Operations, overseeing both WA & HI hatcheries. Protocols were established for hatchery operations and data collection. Trademark double-hybrid oyster seed was brought to the west coast market, and families produced and field tested.
The West Coast
The years leading up to 2023, The Salty Farmer donned his business development hat and began facilitating farm-based research on partner farms. He established relationships with 5 partner farms, and a remote NOAA facility in Alaska, to host up to 150x uniquely identified cages for tracking cohort performance. This field testing yielded familial and environmental data which informed the breeding program. Data gained at the end of each year influenced the annual planning for the hatcheries.
While on the West Coast, Jeremy has been a presenter at PCSGA, ASGA, and NOAA's NMFS Manchester on behalf of the work done through Pacific Hybreed.
