By Maggie Gaddy 

Thousands of oysters bobble in cages just offshore Sandy Bay in Bayou La Batre. There, the Zirlott family has spent more than a decade building Murder Point Oysters, transforming a small oyster farm into a nationally recognized brand rooted in Mobile County’s coastal community. 

“We got into oyster farming in 2012,” said Rosa Zirlott, a multi-generational fisherman and co-owner of Murder Point Oysters. “Auburn University (AU) brought the opportunity to the Gulf, and there weren’t any commercial industry people wanting to do it. I talked my husband into taking the course. Being water people and being around the water, it came very natural to us.” 

AU’s Gulf Coast Research & Extension Center provided the family a 2-acre plot to learn the craft. The GPS coordinates, known as Murder Point, inspired the morbid name.

As the family expanded its operation, it reinvested nearly every dollar back into the business, purchasing land, building a hatchery and expanding production. Marketing, however, remained out of reach.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development program helped bridge the gap, Rosa said. 

“My son, Lane, is an excellent marketer, but it takes money to be able to do great marketing,” Rosa said. “We started looking for ways to do more than what we could financially do ourselves.”

A USDA grant helped the family strengthen the Murder Point brand, create promotional materials and gain exposure at national seafood trade shows. Rosa said the opportunity allowed the small family business to compete with corporations that had significantly larger marketing budgets.

“This little Bayou La Batre oyster farm is doing big-time marketing with the big guys,” Rosa said. “We are standing out with everybody else, so it’s been a blessing.”

USDA Rural Development State Director Twinkle Cavanaugh said the Zirlotts exemplify how the agency’s programs help rural businesses grow.

“The USDA grant allowed them to market what they do here and to get Alabama oysters throughout the U.S.,” Cavanaugh said. “We offer 86 programs designed to address needs in communities across Alabama.”

Cavanaugh noted about 75% of Alabama is considered rural, according to USDA guidelines.

“We don’t go into a smaller community and tell them what they need,” Cavanaugh said. “We go in and let them know what we have, and then they tell us what they need.”

Lane Zirlott said the grant allowed the family to present Murder Point Oysters on the level they always envisioned.

“No matter what you’re doing, if nobody knows about it, nobody knows,” Lane said. “Being able to get that marketing grant allowed us to really present this oyster on the stage that we see it.”

One platform included the Seafood Expo North America in Boston, where the family’s bigger-is-better marketing approach helped Murder Point stand out with branded merchandise such as hats and scarves.

“We’re big. We’re a little louder than life,” Lane said. “We kind of come in and just show off what’s really going on with the product. Without that grant, you’re limited to what you can budget for and what you can afford. It opened the door and led to all kinds of things.”

Those doors have carried Murder Point Oysters far beyond the Gulf Coast. 

“For the first time ever, we are in Canada,” Rosa said. “We’re shipping to Boston. We are in California. We are in Denver. We are in a lot of places that, without that exposure, we wouldn’t be.”

The product drawing attention in those markets begins at home in Bayou La Batre. Murder Point is Alabama’s only oyster farm with its own hatchery and broodstock, Lane said.

“When you’re oyster farming, you’ve got to have a mindset of, ‘What I do today matters tomorrow,’” Lane added.

As the Zirlotts continue growing their market, USDA Rural Development is helping the family explore ways to extend the reach of their Sweet Grown Alabama product. Through USDA’s Value-Added Producer Grant, the business is seeking new customers while creating an oyster product designed to travel farther.

For Lane, seeing his family’s logo appear across the country is a full-circle reminder that work happening each day in the waters of Bayou La Batre matters.

“When you find somebody that’s invested enough to look into you, to see your story, like your product and want to wear it…it means something,” Lane said. “Even though you’re out here in the water and there’s nobody around you, somebody in this country is buying a Murder Point logo hat, a shirt or eating your oyster. It makes a difference.”