November 11, 2025 — New Jersey environmental officials and food distributor Sysco Corporation announced a partnership Nov. 10 to recycle more seafood shell from restaurants and expand the state’s program for building oyster reefs.
At a news conference at Sysco’s Buckhead Meat & Seafood processing facility in Lakewood, N.J., the state Department of Environmental Protection detailed how Sysco “will collect discarded oyster and clam shells from restaurants it serves across the region and provide them to the agency’s Shell Recycling Program for oyster reef enhancement projects that could potentially expand to multiple sites along the state’s coastline.”
It’s an ancient principle of shellfish growers that oyster larvae need to attach to a hard substrate to develop – preferably clean oyster or clam shells. With water quality improvements, enterprising New Jersey shellfishermen began working on leased grounds for aquaculture leases, and by the 1990s a commercial oyster revival showed the potential for future growth.
“Sysco is excited to partner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to scale a project we have been interested in for several years,” John Yates, president of Buckhead Meat & Seafood’s Mid-Atlantic Region, said in a joint statement with DEP officials. “Preserving and restoring oyster reefs is not only important for the shellfish themselves but also to the broader marine ecosystem and our communities that rely on this for critical proteins.”