fresh mussels

The ratification by Europe of the European quality sign STG assures the consumers to savour the TRUE and GOOD Farmed mussels!

To choose Farmed mussels it's to consume products raised according to a traditional culture, on masts called Mussel bed, what what means:

• A texture of the very smooth, silky and not floury flesh, because the shell(misprint) remains very well closed during the stages of conditioning(packaging), transport, storage and putting on sale.

• The color cremates in yellow orange-colored of its cooked flesh: the mussels of breeding are enough spaced out in an environmental volume where the food phytoplanctonique is plentiful, what confers them a tint of steady flesh of cream to yellow orange-colored more or less pronounced

• The purity: "farmed mussels" present a clean shell, they contain foreign bodies (crabs, grains of sand), nor any smell or no taste of vase, because at the time of the installation of a rope or a sausage on the picket (bed), a minimal height of 30 centimeters is respected between the ground and the lower level of the rope or the sausage. The farmed mussel thus has no contact with the ground.

• A well filled shell: the homogeneous distribution and the low density of pickets on the foreshore, as well as the care concerned in the regular distribution of mussels the height of pickets, allow that the load of mussels is regularly displayed over the whole body of water available on the foreshore. Mussels can so take advantage of nourishing elements circulating in the various depths of the blade of water, what allows a homogeneous filling of shells.

• A shell lasts : the mode of production in zone of exondation frequentsand the frequent exposure of the shell outdoors and in the sun which it leads, pull its hardening. That is why the shell of "farmed mussels" presents an important solidity.

Everything begins with the "spat", that is the quite young mussels, hardly bigger than a pinhead. Got at sea on the Atlantic Coast and hung on ropes of coconut matting, them are delivered to May to the mussel breeders of the coast of Manche and the North Sea. 3 meters long, ropes are settled on " construction sites" of wait constitutedby two posts connected(bound) by crossbars and situated on the concessions the closest to the bank. The young mussels, which are approximately going to stay there during one year, quickly win in size. That is why, to maintain them, we wrap up them in a net, first time towards the end of September, then in February-March, in April and finally

As any alive body, the mussel is sensitive in the middle in whom it develops: she needs a water healthy and rich in phytoplankton. That is why she is raised near estuaries, in the outlet of coastal rivers rich in nourishing elements. The setting-up of mussel beds with regard to the estuary has a direct impact on the growth of mussels: in the most productive parks, the picking can begin from July. Traditionally, she was manually made but, since the environment of the 1990s, the use of flat-bottomed barges became widespread. Equipped of a kind of crowbar maneuvered thanks to an articulated arm, they allow a faster mechanized harvest and in bigger volumes. They authorize especially an access to mussel beds easier

After collection, mussels are put in "purification", that is placed in hanging ponds 12 at 12 pm. Of course, as for any product intended for the human consumption, their sanitary quality is closely followed: the autocontrols led by the very professionals are completed by unannounced controls of the veterinary services.