Seafood with a very specific geography
Not all scallops are the same. Not because it’s a sales pitch, but because the geography of the sea really matters.
The scallop that arrives in a Bongarth can comes exclusively from the Ría de Arousa, the largest of the Rías Baixas and one of the areas with the greatest benthic richness of the Galician coast. And this origin has consequences on the taste, the texture, and what lies behind the product.
The Arousa Estuary: a unique environment
The Ría de Arousa has something that few estuaries have to the same extent: a combination of deep Atlantic waters that enter with each tide, a bottom rich in organisms that serve as food, and a regulated environment that has protected this richness for decades.
The result is a sea bream that grows in optimal conditions: clean water, abundant natural food, and a population density controlled by the annual management plans published by the Consellería do Mar in the Diario Oficial de Galicia.
It is not a farmed or intensively farmed product. It is a wild mollusk that lives at the bottom of the estuary until the fishing season allows it.
The art of capture: traditional and exclusive of Arousa
The Ría de Arousa’s scallops are caught using the art of bou de vara, a traditional technique that the Consellería do Mar regulates with annual management plans and that, according to Decree 15/2011 of the Xunta de Galicia, can only be authorized in the area of the Ría de Arousa.
This geographical exclusivity is not casual. The seabed and the specific conditions of the Arousa estuary make it the ideal area for this gear, and the annual regulation establishes catch periods (usually from November to March), fishing hours from Monday to Friday, and maximum quotas per vessel. All this with the aim of guaranteeing the long-term sustainability of the resource.
The pescadeRías certification
The scallops we use in Bongarth are certified with the seal pescadeRías de onde se non?, the brand of the Consellería do Mar de la Xunta de Galicia created in 2008 to differentiate seafood products from the Galician artisanal fleet.
This seal guarantees that the product has been landed in a Galician port, caught no more than 24 hours before its first sale, and that it comes from selective and environmentally friendly fishing gear. It is not a decorative seal: it implies an external audit and a real monitoring of traceability.
From sea to can: the process
The scallop arrives fresh from the fish market. From that moment on, time matters: the sooner it is processed, the better its texture and marine flavor are preserved.
The preparation process includes cleaning and separation of the pieces, controlled cooking to lock in the shellfish’s own juices, and packing in oil with the stew ingredients. In the case of Bongarth’s stewed scallops, the result is a whole piece, with body, that preserves the characteristic texture of this mollusk: firm but not hard, with that clean sea flavor that distinguishes the bivalves of the Rías.
Why provenance matters to consumers
There are many products on the market that use the term “zamburiña” in their labeling. Spanish legislation allows a certain flexibility in the use of trade names for bivalve mollusks. This means that not everything that is called “zamburiña” on a can has the same origin, the same catching gear, nor the same control system.
The difference between a scallop certified with pescadeRías, caught in the Ría de Arousa under a regulated management plan, and a product without such traceability, is real. It is not just marketing of origin: it is a verifiable guarantee of what is inside.
At Bongarth we do not use origin as an aesthetic argument. We use it because it is the only way to guarantee that what arrives at your table has a control system that works.