EASTPOINT – It's 10:45 a.m. The last 15 minutes before Apalachicola oysters have to be on ice are chaotic on the docks of Barber's Seafood in Eastpoint.
Eager oystermen and women hurriedly fling burlap sacks brimming with the shellfish onto pallets as forklifts speed back and forth to empty the morning's catch into the frigid refrigeration coolers.
They're working under the gun of a revised Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services regulation that went into effect Monday mandating that all whole-shell oysters have to be under refrigeration by 11 a.m. — three hours earlier than in previous years — and be cooled to 55 degrees by 1 p.m.
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