Quality Overview
Cuan Oysters are grown in class A waters in a marine nature reserve, but also undergo a period of depuration as an extra safeguard. Many years of experience and an extensive external monitoring program ensure consistently high product quality, exceptional product safety, and excellent shelf life.

Water Quality
Cuan's Oyster beds are some of the very few in the British Isles to be designated under the EU Shellfish Directive 79/923/EEC. This designation followed detailed monitoring of a variety of parameters which were shown to be undetectable or low, including microbiological levels, heavy metals, organohalogens, radionucleotides and suspended solids. The Directive requires annual monitoring to ensure that none of the levels of these parameters increase.
All of Cuan's growing sites have been graded class A under the EU Classification of Shellfish Waters. This category allows shellfish to go direct for human consumption without depuration providing the end product standards are met.

Purification
Although purification of oysters from Cuan's oyster beds is not required, the company nevertheless pass all oysters through its approved depuration plant for at least 42 hours.

Wholesaler Quality Award
In 1997 Cuan became the first oyster producer in the U.K. to receive the Seafish Industry Wholesaler Quality Award, in recognition of high standards of premises, hygiene and working practices. It has retained this award each subsequent year.

Microbiological and Toxin Testing
Cuan's oysters are sampled weekly and independently tested for a range of bacteria, including E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Lysteria, with additional tests carried out by the Local Environmental Health Department every other month. Also, newly devised tests for F+ viral phages are undertaken monthly, with the result that Cuan's oysters are more frequently analysed for quality than any other oysters sold in the British Isles.
To complete the analysis of purity of these shellfish, samples are taken every two weeks by the Department of Environment to ensure that the oyster growing sites are free from PSP and DSP toxic algae.