FREEPORT

After 16 years of selling clams wholesale from a 600-square-foot building at his home, Garrett Simmons of S&S Seafood decided it was time for a change and has closed the business.

Located on Litchfield Road, S&S Seafood closed a week ago and Simmons and his family are packing to move to Florida where he has family.

With no plans for what he’ll do next after a lifetime of shell harvesting and running the wholesale store, Simmons, 51, said it was time for a change, a decision based on many factors.

Part of the decision is related to what is going on in the shellfish industry and Simmons said he’d been buying less product. He estimates a declined in product especially in the last three years.

“I think we’ve seen about a 30 percent drop over the last three years — every year,” Simmons said Friday.

Simmons said there are several factors working against local clams. Sea temperatures are warming while predators such as the invasive green crab have become more abundant. All that makes it tough to be a soft-shelled clam in Maine.

“We’ve bottomed out I hope and things could rebound,” Simmons said.

He knows there are good years ahead but thinks there are a lot of problems with where things are headed with those warmer trends.

S&S Seafood was completely wholesale, buying mainly from clam harvesters in the Freeport and Brunswick area, as well as from dealers up and down the coast. He’d truck them out of state as far as Boston. His decision to close is more about the resources, but he said the business has become complicated by regulations, trucking and “layers and layers of things to deal with.”

Closing does have a ripple effect for those local harvesters who have to travel a little further when a local dealer leaves, which is more costly.

In general, Simmons said the harvesters he’s dealt with are optimistic about the future of the industry. Small clams and seeds have been planted, and there will be rebounds.

Still, he sees hard times on the horizon, and if there is help to be had, “I don’t think anybody knows the answer yet,” Simmons said.

He added: “I think as long as we have municipal shellfish programs it’s going to be their responsibility to do more along the lines of some sort of predator protection of the flats, and if they can’t get that off the ground collectively as a municipality, they should consider releasing flats to give individuals the opportunity to try to protect some areas of shellfish flats.”

S&S Seafood

S&S SEAFOOD was completely wholesale, buying mainly from clam harvesters in the Freeport and Brunswick area, as well as from dealers up and down the coast. Garrett Simmons would truck them out of state as far as Boston.

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