Northern Italy to the southern United States
Ours Is a Story of Four Generations of Mariculture Farmers.
Labels from L. P. Maggioni and Company’s 19th Century Cannery
L. P. Maggioni and Company first began operation in 1870 after Luigi Paoli Maggioni emigrated from Genoa, Italy to begin a new life in the United States. He and his wife, Natalie Betellini whom he met and married in Jacksonville, Florida settled on the Isle of Hope near Savannah, Georgia and began selling shellfish and other small items.
In 1883, they opened an oyster factory on Daufuskie Island and later built an oyster cannery in Beaufort, South Carolina. The company which started as a retail seafood dealership peaked in the mid 1900s to include fifteen canneries throughout South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. L. P. Maggioni and Company employed more than 2,500 people and also branched out their oyster business to include shrimp, citrus, and produce as well. They packaged and labeled scores of products — today, we recognize the packages as little pieces of art.
Paul Maggioni, grandson of the company's founder, along with his sons Ralph and Phillip ran the operation from an office and warehouse in Savannah. The main offices in Savannah provided management for canneries in Thunderbolt, Harris Neck, and Brunswick, Georgia and nine separate operations in Beaufort and Charleston, South Carolina. By the 1980s, the company refocused their operation on oysters and became one of the oldest oyster canners in the United States.
In 1990 Roddy Beasley (husband to Angela Maggioni) bought Maggioni Seafood and transformed the canning business into the region’s largest wholesale supplier of wild harvested bushels and clams.
Today, Maggioni Seafood is doing business as “Maggioni Oyster Company” and is South Carolina’s largest provider of premium quality wild harvested bushels and single oysters.
Left: Jeff Beasley at Maggioni Oyster company; Right, one of many Maggioni signs from decades past
Following in his father’s footsteps, fifth generation owner/operator Jeff Beasley takes pride in keeping the quality high and the oysters healthy and delicious. Maggioni oysters are harvested from our privately leased oyster beds which are all located in the clean salty waters of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. When he is not farming, he plays in his own band, The Jeff Beasley Band, around town.