SEAFOOD STAR : March 1999

A conch farmer who does well by doing good
Chuck Hesse raises an endangered Caribbean shellfish for the U.S. market

By Fiona Robinson

Getting consumers to try a new seafood species is a challenge under the best of circumstances. It’s especially tricky when that species is classified as commercially endangered. But Chuck Hesse aims to get his product, queen conch, onto menus across the United States. And he’s well on his way.

That wasn’t exactly his goal in 1974, when the seasick marine scientist first stumbled into the Turks & Caicos Islands aboard his sloop Alondra to seek refuge from a storm. Little did he know that for the next 25 years, he would make the islands his home while running the world’s only successful commercial conch farm.

At his Caicos Conch Farm, Hesse grows queen conchs, Strombus gigas, and markets them live to upscale restaurants in the United States. (This product is not to be confused with whelks, erroneously called conchs and native to the U.S. East Coast.)

Hesse pioneered the technology of growing the true conch and now runs one of the few companies in the world to commercially produce an endangered species. Commercial and recreational harvesting of queen conch decimated wild conch stocks in the Caribbean and off the coast of Florida.

Harvesting conch has been forbidden in Florida since 1985, and in 1992, conch joined the list of endangered species monitored by the Geneva-based Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). CITES gave the Caicos Conch Farm permission to sell farmed conch as an alternative to overfishing.

Hesse has since shifted the farm’s focus from marine conservation to an export business that also offers local fishermen job alternatives and helps restore the region’s most important source of marine protein.

“All our work is built on the concept that conservation is good for business,” says Hesse. “So the business has to work for the conservation to work.”

The farm has operated trouble-free for 14 years, says Hesse. It took him most of that time to develop a cost-effective way to grow conch. The solution he found was to market juvenile animals. His Ocean Escargot and Island Princess juvenile conchs reach market size in two years — half the time it takes to raise the standard adult conch. They are also more tender.

During the years Hesse spent perfecting conch-farming techniques, one vital question remained unanswered: How to introduce his conch to the U.S. market.

The question was not only one of how to sell it, but of how physically to get the live product into the market. Conchs grow in tropical seawater and die if placed in cool air or water. To address this problem, the farm leases two refresh facilities in Florida, one in Miami and the other in Fort Lauderdale.

The conchs are airfreighted from the islands to Miami, where they are placed in temperature-controlled, recirculating seawater 12 hours after leaving the farm. They are then shipped to customers nationwide, although most are sold to foodservice operations in Florida and San Francisco at present.

Hesse’s goal is to ship 2,000 pounds of conch to Florida each week; he’s currently shipping half that. The farm has enough maturing conchs in inventory that it could conceivably export as many as 4,000 to 5,000 pounds a week.

The complexities of keeping conchs alive and teaching consumers how to cook and eat them ruled out the retail market. Instead, Hesse decided to target white-tablecloth restaurants through the Chefs Who Care program, an alliance of 30 to 40 executive chefs nationwide who serve farm-raised seafood. The alliance was started this past autumn by Stephen Garza of Sun Ray Seafoods in Florida, who also runs one of the farm’s refresh facilities.

Hesse bets that once the chefs are taught how to cook and promote conch in their restaurants, more consumers will be willing to try it. The product is tender yet crunchy and high in omega-3 fatty acids. It is an ideal replacement for shrimp and a substitute for abalone medallions.

Caicos is projected to ship 3 million live conchs to the U.S. market this year — double the farm’s production in 1998. And, in addition to commercial production, Caicos Conch Farm continues to release millions of conch larvae into the waters off the Turks & Caicos. Hesse’s is the only company engaged in such restocking efforts.

Hesse’s efforts are paying off. “The response has been very favorable,” he says Hesse. “We have to take something that’s a borderline fad and turn it into a trend. Once we do that, we can help [the Turks & Caicos Islands] support its resources.”

Meanwhile, he is already plotting his next step. He wants to work with natural-foods supermarkets and put conch tanks in full view of the consumer. The seasick marine scientist turned sales and marketing director may have lofty goals, but considering how much he’s already accomplished, why shouldn’t he achieve them?

Fiona Robinson can be e-mailed at frobinson@divcom.com.