Compared to oxygen isotopes, the carbon isotope composition of biogenic carbonates is less commonly used as proxy for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions because shell δ13C is derived from both dissolved inorganic (seawater) and organic carbon sources (food), and interactions between these two pools make it difficult to unambiguously identify any independent effect of either. The main purpose of this study was to demonstrate any direct impact of variable food supply on bivalve shell δ13C signatures, using low/high rations of a 13C-light mixed algal diet fed to 14-month-old (adult) cultured Japanese Crassostrea gigas under otherwise essentially identical in vitro conditions during 3 summer months (May, June and July 2003, seawater temperature means at 16, 18 and 20 °C respectively) in experimental tanks at the Argenton laboratory along the Brittany Atlantic coast of France. At a daily ration of 12% (versus 4%) oyster dry weight, the newly grown part of the shells (hinge region) showed significantly lower δ13C values, by 3.5‰ (high ration: mean of −5.8 ± 1.1‰, n = 10; low ration: mean of −2.3 ± 0.7‰, n = 6; ANOVA Scheffe’s test, p