In 1982, Nancy Follini and Joe Gilbert, “life partners and entrepreneurs,” as their company’s website describes them, put their money into one boat and a bag of clam seed. More than four decades later, Briarpatch Shellfish Company works Long Island Sound off Milford with a fleet of 10 boats. Its oysters have been served at the Milford Oyster Festival, and its clams have turned up at one of New Haven’s most famous pizzerias.
The past two years handed the company a different kind of test, one nobody has fully explained.
Two people who started on the water
According to the company’s team page, Follini and Gilbert both went into the fisheries in 1980. Gilbert “has been involved in fishing all his life,” and by 1982 he had worked as a lobsterman, a trawlerman and a shellfisher. That year the couple formed Briarpatch, and Gilbert turned his focus to shellfish. In 2003 he branched out into the offshore scallop business. “You will find Joe on any one of his fishing boats but rarely sitting down,” the website says.
Follini, the site says, “comes from a long line of entrepreneurs” and is “responsible for the spirit and energy of Briarpatch through all the ups and downs a business goes through.”
The couple wrote their values down at the start. The first one on the list is “Put people before profit.”
The people who stayed
Some of the crew have been around for most of that history. The company says many of its staff have been there more than 20 years. Brian Yarmosh started in April 1999 as a high school student working after school and in the summers, then kept working there while he earned a biology degree in 2003. Priscilla Wells, who handles invoicing and payroll, joined in 1990 and earned her MBA from the University of New Haven while working full time.
Yarmosh is now the company’s director of marine operations, according to a July 2026 CT Post report. In 2023 he gave the Milford Mirror a sense of what the job asks of people. That year a crew of 17 spent the days before the 49th Oyster Festival hauling, washing and refrigerating about 28,000 oysters. Wind cost them most of two working days.
“Even when it’s just a sunny flat calm day, you get worn out because you’re getting hit by the sun from above, the reflection from below and you’re on your feet for eight to 10 hours a day,” Yarmosh told the Mirror. Crew member Shawn Forgette added: “I’ve seen people fall asleep standing up.”
The company charged the city $60 a bag for festival oysters Yarmosh said would rate $80, and he said it does the festival for the prestige and to give back to Milford as much as for the money.
1,700 acres, closed
In November 2024, state water samples showed high bacteria levels off Milford’s west shore. The state closed 1,700 acres of oyster beds, and officials said the contamination was likely linked to human waste. The CT Post reported in July 2026 that the beds reopened in summer 2025. Milford spent more than $150,000 cleaning and inspecting its storm and sewer lines, but the source was never found.
For Briarpatch, the closure changed how it farms. Yarmosh told the CT Post that the company used to prefer planting in sheltered beds closer to shore, which were safer and easier to work. Now, worried those inner beds could close again, it plants more shellfish in deeper, less protected water where rough weather makes harvesting harder. The company still uses its inner leases, he said, just not as heavily as before.
Since the reopening, a state Department of Agriculture spokesperson told the CT Post, none of the monthly samples has shown elevated bacteria. But with no source identified, the possibility of a repeat hasn’t gone away.
A crew in the right place
On the company’s community page, Briarpatch links to news stories about its crews, and one of them stands out. Early on Sept. 25, 2024, Capt. Mark Peckman and the crew of the clamming boat Joseph Julius came across a fisherman clinging to his capsized boat south of Charles Island, WFSB reported. He had lost his phone when the boat overturned. The Milford Fire Department told NBC Connecticut that “the quick actions from the crew of the Joseph Julius truly helped to save this individuals life.”
Its clams get around, too. In 2018, the New Haven Register’s Randall Beach went to watch Frank Pepe Pizzeria’s full-time clam shucker at work and spotted a supplier tag by the sink: Briarpatch Enterprises of Milford.
Still out there
Today the fleet includes two custom-built boats: the oyster boat Audacious, with its own refrigeration system, and the clam boat American Dream. The website says the crews are on the Sound year-round and ship within 24 hours. The company describes its place in town simply: “We believe Briarpatch is not just a business, rather we are a family and we have a duty to give back to our community, both on land and at sea.”
The single boat and bag of seed from 1982 are long gone. Forty-plus years on, as Yarmosh put it, the crews still spend their days standing up, working whatever weather the Sound hands them.
What to try
Briarpatch oysters, raw on the half shell
Briarpatch grows its oysters from seed in beds off Milford, between the Housatonic and Wepawaug rivers. The company says that spot gives them “the ideal environment of salinity and food resource.” They are chilled aboard Audacious from harvest through delivery, so all you need is a lemon wedge.
At the Milford Oyster Festival
The surest local place to eat them is the festival. Its website says the oysters come from “Milford’s own Briarpatch Shellfish Company,” with Pearl’s Shellfish added this year. The 2026 festival ran Aug. 14 and 15 at Fowler Field, and the shells go back to the Sound through the CORR oyster recycling program.
Their hard clams
Briarpatch clams pass several quality checks for sizing and packing before they ship. Co-founder Joe Gilbert’s rule, according to the company: “I would not serve someone anything that I would not be excited to eat myself.” Clam pie fans may already have had them, if that Pepe’s supplier tag is any guide.
Ask your raw bar or fish market
Briarpatch sells wholesale through distributors along the East Coast and does not list a retail counter, so we could not confirm a shop that sells them by the dozen. Your best bet is to ask your fishmonger or raw bar where their oysters are from. Wholesale buyers can call 203-876-8923.
KEY FACTS
Business: Briarpatch Shellfish Company (Briarpatch Enterprises)
Address: 322 New Haven Ave., Milford, CT 06460
Phone: (203) 876-8923
Founded: 1982, by Nancy Follini and Joe Gilbert
Reader poll: Have you eaten Briarpatch oysters or clams?
Get Milford’s best stories first — subscribe to the free Milford Voice newsletter
Got a tip? Email news@milfordvoice.com
Photos courtesy of Briarpatch Shellfish Company (briarpatchshellfish.com).
