About Finisterra, organic mussels from Sagres
The ingredient list on a Finisterra tin runs to two lines: organic mussel meat and organic mussel broth. The broth is the liquid the mussel itself releases as it is steamed.
A list that short looks like a matter of style. It is really a consequence of where the mussel grows and how little time it takes to reach the tin. Finisterra is the first brand from another producer to enter the Zé Latas catalog, after the four the store already carried. It does not buy the mussels it cans: it farms them in open water off Sagres and cans them at Porto da Baleeira, three nautical miles from where they grew.
Sagres, on the southwestern tip of Europe
The name comes from Latin and means the end of the Earth. It describes the place literally. Sagres, from the Latin Sacrum, has been considered sacred since Celtic times: the place "where the Earth ends and the Sea begins," says the brand's website.
The company settled in Sagres in November 2010 and the following year started up its farming systems on longlines, lines suspended in open water one or two nautical miles off the coast. It chose the spot for Atlantic waters almost untouched by pollution and for the currents that renew them. The mussel is a species native to these waters.
Organic mussels farmed in open water, 18 to 24 months
There is no seeding. Every year the native populations spawn and release microscopic larvae by the million, which die for lack of anything to cling to. Finisterra puts collectors made of recycled nets and fishing rope in their path, where they settle on their own. From there to market size takes 18 to 24 months, with no feed, antibiotics, vaccines or chemicals: they live on the phytoplankton carried by the currents, and a five-centimeter mussel filters up to five liters of water an hour.
Production has been certified organic by the European Union since November 2016, with the EU-Organic and PT-BIO codes on the label. The shell is about 98.5% calcium carbonate. To build it, the mussel takes CO₂ out of the sea: 168 grams per kilo of adult animal. The longlines work as an artificial reef, with fish, shrimp, crabs, octopus and sea urchins around the ropes.
The corporate film produced by ASC follows the operation, from farming to the filling of the tins: five and a half minutes, with English narration and subtitles.
Less than 24 hours between the sea and the tin
Less than 24 hours pass between the harvest offshore and the finished conserve. In that window the mussels are brought to the harbor, washed with seawater pumped from more than 20 meters down, steamed, shelled, debearded and graded, before the tin is filled and sealed. The quality of the Sagres waters makes depuration unnecessary.
Inside are the two ingredients from the start, "preserved exclusively in their own natural broth. Nothing else, no sauces, no additives and no tricks," says the catalog.
The tin is a ¼ club, easy-open, in printed carton: 120 grams net weight, 80 grams drained, four years of shelf life. Grade is counted in mussels per tin: large, 8 to 14; medium, 14 to 20; small, 16 to 25. The two larger ones are filled by hand. What changes between the three is the size of the meat, not the recipe.
ASC certification, two firsts in Portugal
In October 2020 Finisterra added ASC Farm and ASC Chain of Custody, the responsible aquaculture standard of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, in two firsts: the first mussel production in continental Europe with ASC and the first aquaculture operation in Portugal, of any species, to obtain the certification. Together with EU organic and IFS Food version 8, it is the first mussel farm in the European Union to hold the three certifications at the same time. Manuel Pinto Ribeiro, chief executive, described the ASC standards as "an ideal framework" for the company's values and its commitment to "the biodiversity of the Mar de Sagres."
What is left over goes back to the beginning
The shells do not go to waste: ground up, they are sold as fertilizer for certified organic farming, and the company is registered in the European Union to sell them for animal feed. More than 95% of the water used at the plant is seawater: with no chemicals in the process, it returns to the ocean filtered, just as it was pumped.
Until the 1970s, the film recounts, Portugal had dozens, perhaps more than a hundred, canning companies, before the industry collapsed. Finisterra presents itself as part of the revival of that tradition, with everything happening in Sagres, from the larva that settles on the rope by itself to the tin. The catalog sums it up this way: "One complete cycle. One single origin."
18 to 24 months at sea with no feed, less than 24 hours on land, hand filling in the larger grades: all of it to arrive at what the film sums up in one phrase, giving people a taste of the sea of Sagres.
