It’s hard to imagine two worlds more different than the affluent south shore town of Duxbury and impoverished villages outside Port Au Prince, Haiti. But a local man has figured out how to make a unique business model work in both communities, to create food and jobs.
When he graduated college with a degree in finance, Skip Bennett had a plan: go to New York City and get a job. But first he wanted one more summer on the water.
“I was gonna get my resume together and buy a couple of suits,” he said. And he’s still saving up for the suits. Instead, he’s made his living wearing waders. He tried raising mussels and clams, but then he decided to grow something different along the waters off Duxbury and Plymouth, something that no one in recent memory had ever seen here: oysters.
Bennett operates three oyster farms, the backbone of Island Creek Oysters, an operation that includes an oyster hatchery. “Twenty years ago, twenty-one years ago there were no oysters in Duxbury or Kingston or Plymouth Bay. And now Duxbury’s the largest oyster production town in Massachusetts,” said Bennett. “So there’s millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of oysters that come out of Duxbury, there’s hundred of jobs and all that money kind of flows back into the local economy.”
Bennett’s oyster business got bigger than he ever imagined it would and so he started thinking big, too, about providing food and jobs in another community, in a place where both are desperately needed: Haiti.
Bennett travels to Haiti several times a year where he lends resources and expertise to another group of fish farmers. They grow a fish called “tilapia” but Bennett says it’s a lot like growing oysters. So he shares farming techniques and something just as valuable: his direct to the customer business model.
Valentin Abe is the founder of Caribbean Harvest in Haiti. Abe said, “What we have really benefitted from [Bennett] is insight on how to sell seafood.” When Bennett got involved his organization had helped about fifty people make a living as fish farmers. Four years later that number has grown to 250. “What I will say to be really honest is, I will say that Island Creek is a big part of this success, extremely big part,” said Abe.
Skip Bennett once thought he had to move to New York to be a success but from his hometown beach he’s figured out a way to produce and distribute food that could impact communities around the world.
