New Iranian caviar farm
July 24, 2009 · Print This Article
The german company United Food Technologies AG (UFT) is a worldwide expert in building water closed circuits for aquafarms. They will cooperate with the irani government in order to build a caviar farm in the Gorgan Gulf, northern Golestan province and near the border of Turkmenistan. Teheran is eager to develop the cultivation of fish in general and more even regarding the sturgeon. Due to the recent and actual free fall of Acipenser landings in the Caspian Sea – due to poaching, overfishing and pollution – their plan fits into the current agenda of the caviar industry. Raising sturgeons is the only way in order to provide the gourmets around the world with caviar. Sad but true: Wild caviar is doomed.
An interesting question: will the Iranians be able to step into their own legacy and produce a top premium caviar inside their aquacultures? In my point of view they are starting relatively late with vision. And taking the painful mistakes into account that every farmer has to diggest, well, then it will still be a very long way until we see some iranian farmed caviar on the shelf. And start digging graves for the Almas caviar…
ZwyerCaviar LLC has nothing to fear, as its caviar producer – Esturiones del Rio Negro SA – is to date the one and only sturgeon farm so far, which has access to millions of fresh river water. And in stark contrast to UFT, the water is being used once of course – and never ever re-circulated. Any questions…?
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Dear Caviarist,
Could you tell us more about the caviar farms in north eastern China?
I have recently tasted this Huso Dauricus and found it to be excellent on the palate with very pleasing size grains of a good colour.
I have also heard rumour of caviar farming in Saudi Arabia as well. Do you have information on this? Best regards, Black Book Caviar, Cape Town
Dear Di Botha,
I have heard the same rumours: once laughed about it, recently the are getting quite interesting gradings. For my part, I didn’t had the chance to try the Kaluga sturgeon (nor the Amur sturgeon) – yet. I wonder through which distributional channel you stumbled over the chinese caviar. And at what costs? Maybe you can provide me with these infos?
Somebody told me that many of the chinese caviar producers where present at the latest Sea Food Show in Brussels. But I really wonder how Europe and the U.S. will be ready to accept ‘caviar made in China’. As there is still a lot of negativ connotation about quality products coming from there…
Anyhow, I hope to catch some anytime soon.
Regarding your other question: well, there is a Saudia Arabian sturgeon farm near Dammam (oposite of Jeddah, between Qatar and Kuwait). Owned and operated by the Al Faris Group. Running with water systems of the Cimbria Aquatec company (Cimbria Group). According to my infos its a facility using recirculated water. Besides that they seem to have full control over the temperature. It was founded somewhere around 2004. So, they could pop out and go into market sometime by next year or so.Their initial production volume should be targeting around 5tons according to one source (even though that seems very high to me) and reaching full production with 15tons in a couple of years ahead. Which could cover the total demand in the kingdom. All ‘Oscietra’ graded caviar. I thought I saw some of their first caviar. Could be. Check Alibaba.com or Tradekey.com for more infos. Hope I was of help.
Your Caviarist
Yes, we are getting very good ratings on farmed
Chinese Caviar from North Eastern China,
you will be pleased with the exceptional quality
and texture. If you send me your information I will make
sure a sample is set to you.
Dear Caviarist,
It gives me a great pleasure to inform you about the world’s largest Pisciculture Caviar Plant, to be built in Abu Dhabi-United Arab Emirates.
This exclusive investment is spinned off by Bin Salem Holding with the collaboration of UFT AG Germany with a total investment of about $100 million.
AquaOrbis UAE shall produce High-Quality Oscietra Caviar that rivals traditional imported varieties that are harvested from wild sturgeons by building Pisciculture plants capable of supplying fresh Caviar & high quality of fish for daily consumption round the year and the production capacity shall be about 40 TPA of Caviar & 710 TPA of Sturgeon meats.
The plant will be built in Abu Dhabi over a plot of land of around 60,000 square meter, and will start supplying the market towards the fourth quarter of 2010.
The plant will be a land based indoor industrial aquaculture adopting UFT owned patent closed circuit fish production system. It can produce a steady and self-sustainable production of high quality fish throughout the year.
For further details, please contact me on :
m.nassour@binsalem.ae
Regards,
M. Nassour
Chinese Caviar???
Why would anyone buy chinese caviar? it would propbobly poison you and your guests. They have the worst standards.
Saudi Arabia???
They don’t have water to provide to their people, now they want to get into aquaculture…
Hi Danny Garcia. I wonder if your assumption is true or not. I too have my doubts regarding ‘Chinese Caviar’. But I must say that they generated quite a good response in recent degustations. As unbelievable as it might sound, but Chinese caviar could be the big surprise within the industry. You know, producing toys and milk is one thing. But sturgeon breeding techniques is a very selective realm and know-how travels fast these days. So, maybe they catched up. Even if that’s the case, I dont expect to see their caviar anytime soon in the European market. It will consumed mainly (or solely?) within the national market.
I’ve tried the Chinese, the quality is amazing. I just couldn’t sell it to clients. Once they became aware of origin, they would decline, even after commending the quality of a sample. The only way Chinese Caviar would sell is if the Origin is obscured.
There’s currently a relative surplus of farmed Caviar coming from every corner of the world. The aspects that will determine the successful farmed Caviar would be the water source, species, origin, processing technique, and overall roe quality.
What demands attention is the Imperial Russian Sturgeon being produced in Galilee, branded now as Karat Caviar. Many select generations of Russian sturgeon were bred under the most sophisticated and learned team in Israel. The result are outstanding and evident :
http://www.karatcaviar.com
We (Marky’s Miami) are currently the exclusive distributor within the US and are strongly introducing this Caviar to our US market.
This Karat Osetra doesn’t compete in the realm of farmed Imperial Caviar, but with wild Iranian and Caspian Imperial Osetra. Taking into consideration the quality, sustainability, consistency, price, origin, species….it is now superior to all, Just as the Rio Negro Osetra is one of the finest Baerii in the market.
hello
i am a lebanease invester. i am interested in making a caviar farm and would like to ask for your expertise in this field . if you are interested in partnership or in consulting action please let me know.
i will be waiting for your reply
best regards
Dear sir,
The peak period of investments into this market has been in the 90′s. Today there are already too many sturgeon farms in the world (incl. from China), most of them at the verge of bankrupcy and with severe problems to sell their production of sturgoen roe (caviar) and meat to the market. In addition to the significant upfront investment 5-10 mio. USD investors clearly underestimate the associated risk (national & international regulations, lack of know how, animal diseases, lack of sufficient water) and the time (first profits may take a s long as 10 years (!) or more to appear). My advice to you is rather invest into an established caviar brand or caviar distributor, as this will bring immediate return & satisfaction.
But if still interested, the german company United Food Technologies AG (UFT) might be of help.
kind regards,
Caviarist
PS: We have heard that a huge sturgeon farm (investment: USD +50 Mio.) will be inaugurated soon in your region (UAE)…