Prince Edward Island

Borden-Carleton

The Confederation Cove Musel Company Ltd. — CCMC is conveniently located at the island foot of Confederation Bridge, on the site of the old ferry landing in Borden- Carleton. CCMC processes one quarter, or approximately 9,000,000 pounds, of the island’s annual mussel harvest. They buy from 50 mussel farms surrounding Prince Edward Island, where cultured mussels are grown in mesh socks that are suspended from backlines (ropes) in the water. These ropes are anchored at the bottom and suspended using plastic buoys for floats. It takes one year for the “spat” to reach market size. Then the ropes are pulled into the boat with a winch and pulley, and the mussel-filled socks are removed. (Unlike wild fishery, mussel farming is environmentally friendly; they do not drag the ocean floor to harvest mussels.)

The Northumberland Strait is one of the most productive marine environments in the world, especially for mussels. The quality of water the mussels inhabit makes all the difference in the taste, and Prince Edward Island Blue Mussels are said to be the sweetest-tasting mussels in the world.

A mussel filters ten to fifteen gallons of seawater a day to extract plankton for nutrients, which in turn improves the coastal water quality. No feed or chemicals are used as with other forms of aquaculture. These same tidal waters that can move housesized boulders also constantly replenish the food supply mussels need to taste sweet and grow to market size.

Len Currie, CCMC general manager, says each island cove produces mussels with a distinctive flavor. “We do all we can to preserve that natural flavor, so we can’t afford to have any part of our process or equipment break or slow down. Our fresh mussels are shipped out every day. We hold our mussels in their natural environment until the orders are received. Only after receiving the order will the processing and packing begin. This gives our customers the freshest quality with minimum order lead time.”

Customers can also order their mussels frozen. First they must be blanched to 160 degrees, a process that releases the meat from the shell. Some customers want their order completely cooked (to 180 degrees) before being flash frozen. Len observes, “Since being introduced to Rice Lake equipment it has become the standard to which we measure the performance, user-friendliness and serviceability of other equipment in our plant.” And Mari-Tech? “Mari-Tech continues to be the leader in addressing our equipment or service needs.”

CCMC uses Rice Lake’s CW-80 Checkweigher throughout their operation and especially in their quality assurance lab to verify the yield of meat from each batch. First the raw test mussels are weighed. Then the mussels are removed from the shells and weighed again. After the weighing, the technician sautéed the mussels in butter and we conducted a taste test. Sweet!