Caviar is among the most expensive delicacies in the world. Its price per kilo can reach thousands of dollars for the rarest species, like the Almas Caviar.
The reason why caviar is expensive is because you need a lot of time to produce it. Caviar is the result of a very long process of sturgeon farming, that demands know-how, passion, time and patience.
The farming of sturgeons is a key element in making caviar. The best farms provide perfect conditions for the sturgeons to grow: pure water, carefully selected food, making sure the sturgeon is in good health, not using medication, etc. All that care during 6 to 20 years!
If we take the example of a Beluga sturgeon, they only reach their sexual maturity at 18 to 20 years old, which mean that they will produce their roe only at that age. Beluga sturgeons are very big and they need to be to be fed and taken care of for all those years, which clearly costs a lot of money. It’s a huge investment and commitment for a farm.
Typically, you need about 6-8 years to produce Baerii, about 8-10 years for Oscietra, 10 years for Transmontanus. There are also some species that are more difficult to farm than others, therefore more rare and more expensive. The Sevruga is one of them, it’s a species that is difficult to farm because those sturgeons are very sensitive. So even though you need about 6 years to produce Sevruga, it will be much more expensive than Baerii which is harvested at a similar age.
But let me tell you something. Caviar is actually not that expensive. If you can afford a bottle of Champagne occasionally, you can afford a tin of caviar once in a while. Among my customers buying caviar in my previous role, I had a big percentage of them from the middle class, buying a small tin just once a year at Christmas or for an anniversary. Take Champagne for example, if you buy a bottle of Champagne Cristal from Louis Roederer it will cost you about 250 $, but you can find more affordable Champagne bottles, around 50 $ that are actually very good. It’s the same for Caviar. You can buy a kilo of Beluga which will cost you 5000$, but you can also have a 30gm tin of a very good caviar at about 40 $, which will be a nice tasting for two. You can enjoy a single glass of Champagne as much as you can enjoy a small tin of Caviar.
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