Mussel Man

Portarlington mussel grower Lance Whiffen farms mussels at the southern end of Port Phillip Bay. The former scallop fisher spends his days tending to the mussels growing on woven nylon ropes suspended in the cool, clean water and is showing us around his farm just off the coast of Portarlington. The mussels start out as microscopic larvae in a hatchery at nearby Queenscliff. The ropes are placed in the tanks with the larvae, and they attach themselves to the rope. The ropes are taken out to sea and strung between buoys at a depth of about five metres. The ropes are placed out at sea between late spring and autumn with the mussels taking about 12 months to grow to full size. During that time, the mussels need to be cleaned and thinned to ensure they grow properly.

“We grow Blue Mussels (Mylitus edulis ), which are a native of the bay,” says Lance. “Sometimes spat, or tiny baby mussels, float onto our ropes from the wild,” he says. That same species of mussels has fed the Boon Wurrong people living around the bay for thousands of years, the middens they left after feasting on mussels line the sand dunes. “The shells are made of calcium and carbon,” says Lance. “By growing mussels, we are pulling in CO2 from the environment and locking it into the shells for thousands of years. Growing mussels is not carbon neutral, it is climate positive.” Farmed Blue Mussels are not fed, not medicated, not inoculated. They simply filter feed on the phytoplankton growing naturally in the water column. “Mussels actually make the water cleaner!” says Lance. He has leases of water covering several hundred hectares off Clifton Springs, Portarlington and in Pinnace Channel between Rosebud and Queenscliff.

As he heads his boat back into the dock at Portarlington, Lance puts a pot of freshly harvested mussels on the stove in the boat’s galley. “When our mussels reach the right size we harvest them, clean them, de-beard them,” he says. “It is pretty simple.” Lance adds nothing to the mussels except a touch of water and lets them steam in their own juices. They are fat, plump, juicy with a salty tang and a delicious meaty flavour. Like all Victorian mussels, they are excellent! Sea Bounty mussels appear on menus across the state, as do the other great mussels produced in Victoria. “It makes me proud that I can employ people working in an industry growing something that is unbelievably delicious and so good for the environment!”

Freshly harvested mussels in a pot on the stove in the boat’s galley.