Oyster farmers across Tasmania are scrambling to store thousands of tonnes of unsold stock after sales ''fell off a cliff'' over the past month, says Smithton grower Jon Poke.
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The market for oysters died earlier last month when the government placed restaurants, cafes, bars and clubs - the major buyers of fresh oysters - under lockdown in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Mr Poke said sales for Tarkine Fresh Oysters and parent company Bolduans Bay Oysters had been looking good at the start of the year.
"We're only four years out of the (Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome) epidemic," he said.
"This was the first year that we were really going to start getting back on our feet."
But the death of hospitality came as a blow to most of the seafood sector, but was especially hard on an industry which was still regaining its strength.
"This has hit us again, and we haven't got the reserves that we normally would," Mr Poke said.
He said Easter was normally the second biggest sale season of the year, and that the company had primed about 50 tons of oysters to sell.
"We'll sell about 2 tonnes," he said.
"Both our juvenile oysters we distribute around the state - they're not moving product. And our mature oysters also that go to the wholesale market have just dried up. Only a couple of the major wholesalers on the mainland are buying."
He said one of the main problems for the company at the moment was storage, a stark contrast to the problems caused by POMS.
"From a supply issue to an oversupply issue," he said.
"We've got about 25-26 million in the water at the moment, that about 2000 ton that we've got to try and house when they're at market size."
"There'll be, I think, a lot of businesses that won't survive it, especially if they get into price wars."
Mr Poke said none of the 32 staff employed across the Bolduan group would be retrenched thanks to the federal government's JobKeeper package passed through the senate on Thursday.