Why is caviar expensive

Caviar is considered one of the most expensive foods on the market. Perhaps you have come this far because you do not know its value and why it is a high priced product. Here we answer that question related to caviar. The spoon university online portal reveals that caviar has another, more common name — fish roe , as this is what caviar is: fish eggs.

The fish from which they take their eggs from caviar is a beluga sturgeon species , which lives in rivers and lakes in eastern Europe. Still, an enormous amount of this fish is found in the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The beluga sturgeon fish is the only species that can produce black caviar , so it is unique.

Several factors make caviar so expensive :. The first is what we mentioned earlier about the fact that a single fish is the one that produces this type of eggs. Another factor related to the species that produces it is that the female takes up to 20 years to mature to make caviar. But due to its high demand, scarcity, and overfishing, some sturgeon fish species were threatened. Due to this, currently, there are sturgeon fish hatcheries to control their production.

The increase in the price of a product is mainly due to two factors: supply and demand. In caviar , it is possible to affirm that its high cost is due to the scarcity of sturgeon fish, where the unique delicacy is extracted.

Farmers who are committed to sourcing the expensive food of beluga caviar are locked into a waiting game. Back in , when the sturgeon population was reclassified and added to the endangered list, heavy production was halted, and Iran had to place countrywide controls on the industry.

Now, not only was the production of sourcing beluga caviar extremely slow due to the natural cycle of the sturgeon fish , but the restrictions on production and firm control of imports and exports led to further scarcity. In an attempt to keep supply and demand high, other countries tried to farm their own beluga sturgeons, hoping for their own bloom of onyx fish eggs. Wild fishing for the beluga sturgeon has endured a massive clampdown, but Iran remains a place where sustainable farmed conditions are as close to wild fishing as the industry can ever hope to get.

The highly coveted species of sturgeon are raised legally and under strict duress on Caspian Sea coastlines until the female roe is ready to be naturally harvested. The caviar farms that dot the coastline are heavily regulated and backed by government revenue. There is no room for experimentation in this market — quality is everything. Iranian caviar has become a dynasty — with the Michelin community all committed to sourcing Iranian when it comes to the fabled elixir ingredient.

The reason as to why sturgeon caviar is so expensive seeps through many avenues of time, curated conditions, and finally the experience of taste. Pop a silver spoon into a jar of salt cured black pearl sturgeon caviar and the senses seem to come into perfect alignment. When you invest in the black pearls of the Caspian Sea you are purchasing the taste of centuries of commitment, decades of delicate tweaking, and years of love and waiting.

Considerable number of burst eggs and membranes. Over-dried eggs Eggs firmer than non-pasteurized eggs, easy to separate; presence of lumps and some juice acceptable Sturgeon and salmon roe are not very susceptible to efforts to redefine good flavor and texture because the perception of what constitutes good taste in these products is well established, see the tables below. Weak typical sturgeon odor, no off-doors acceptable Slight, sharp, sour, yeasty, stable off-odor acceptable Typical for pasteurized sturgeon.

Egg membranes melt leaving a pleasant viscous liquid impression. Individual egg membranes are slightly recognizable. Some sharpness; grassy or muddy after-taste acceptable. Weak sturgeon flavour, not offensive, interfering flavours.

Over-dried, recognizable dryness and total loss of the membrane melting phenomenon Typical for pasteurized caviar.

Mild, modified yolky a pleasant flavour; egg membrane is tougher than for non-pasteurized caviar, slight chewiness acceptable. It looks something like this:. The front of the tin can be very attractive, but it does not provide enough information. If you want to reassure yourself about the tin, you need to check the back. It is important to remember that the quality of caviar can be very varied.

So, it is important that you check what is in the tin. This is the only way that you can be sure that you are getting the best roe.

It is a body that guarantees the quality of the delicacy. It will also tell you which country the caviar comes from. This is therefore caviar sourced from the waters of the Caspian. This sea produces the best caviar such as Almas. The CITES information can afford a consumer the knowledge they needed to make the best choices even when shopping online. At all times check the Source Code, this can ensure that you are getting high quality product that can provide you with great dining experience.

There are tins that make many claims and they may appear to be trying to confuse the customer. They want to appear as if they come from Iran which produces the most expensive caviar. These phrases are often used by farms from China and Europe to make their product more appealing.

So be careful. This is their natural environment, and they are regarded as the King of the Fish. Sturgeon has a long breeding cycle and the fish can take years to become sexually mature. There is also the problem of overfishing in the past and illegal smuggling has also been a problem. The threat to the species is so great that governments have come together to protect the three main sturgeon species, and these are the Beluga , Osetra , and Sevruga.

Since it is no longer possible to fish for sturgeon in the waters of the Caspian the only caviar that is available is from fish that is harvested in special farms. These farms contain the waters that the sturgeon have long since thrived in.

It also has the plankton that provides the fish with the best diet. It has proven to be almost impossible to duplicate the conditions of the Caspian elsewhere in the world, in other sturgeon farms. There have been many attempts at duplicating the conditions of the Caspian, but none have really worked. The waters of the largest inland sea are too different from anything else and this really impacts negatively on the fish. Despite massive investment and technology farmers from China to Europe have not been able to reproduce the quality of Russian and Iranian caviar.

Moreover, it can take up to20 years before a farm become viable and can produce roe. This means that the roe that comes from the Caspian is that much more expensive than those from elsewhere. There are three main species of sturgeon and they are Beluga , Ostera and Sevruga.

There is also a species related to the Ostera, known as Persian Ostera. They all have different source codes as shown below. This can be very important in determining the price of the roe.

The CITES organisation tracks all the caviar harvested around the world in order to promote sustainability and to ensure quality.

Because of this every tin has a unique character and this may account for some of its expense. It has taken a thousand years to develop the process that goes into making the roe so delicious and the favorite of Presidents and Monarchs. The process was first developed on the southern shores of the inland sea by Ancient Persians. They have made the delicacy such a success and they still use the traditional process, which makes caviar so unique. The product is not just great tasting, but it has great nutritional value and healthy.

The recipe for producing the caviar is a closely guarded secret that has been kept in families for generations. No one knows the exact steps that are involved in the process. However, in recent years technology has been used to make it even better and to provide the consumer with an even better product.

This can be an expensive process. The Iranians have kept the process a closely guarded secret and they have not disclosed their trade secrets to others. Only trusted people have full knowledge of the system and this means that non-Iranian producers are not as skillful when it comes to the process. The Iranians are justly proud of their skills and this means that they receive high prices for their products.

Moreover, their product contains less salt than other national producers. French, Israeli, Chinese and others add more salt because their products are not that flavorsome.

It is important that caviar is treated in the right way for the safety of the consumer. This can be found near the lot number. It is important to establish how the caviar was harvested, packaged, and its expiration date. The more expensive caviar generally offers a lot of information. Is it pasteurized? This means that it is safe to eat and healthy. There are some tins that used the word fresh instead of pasteurized. The best quality caviar has been pasteurized.

If it has typically good viscosity in the interior of the eggs. This product needs to be pasteurized in a particular way, or else it is not of a high quality. This means producing the delicacy is high. Caviar has different defects and it deteriorates at a different rate and way.

It is important to understand these, so that you can buy the best and get value for money. There are certain defects that occur during processing and in storage. This can detract from the the taste of the caviar , and in general the most expensive caviar is less prone to defects. One of the most common problems with roe both of salmon and sturgeon, is sharpness of taste. This is something that leaves an unpleasant aftertaste.

The caviar with a sharp taste can be really unpleasant. What's more, there are only 27 varieties of sturgeon , and 18 of these are on a list of threatened species, making sturgeon the planet's most endangered group of species. And the rarer sturgeon and its eggs become, the more we value them, since scarcity seems to feed demand just like with Popeyes and its sold-out chicken sandwiches.

Yet another factor that increases the cost of caviar is the fact that these fish eggs must be harvested by hand, and any process that can't be automated incurs higher labor costs. And let's not forget the "snob appeal" — caviar has long been marketed as a food fit for the aristocracy, so naturally it's got to have a price tag that goes along with its image.

While top dollar caviar still costs pretty big bucks, importer Caviar Star tells us that price is related to both availability of a particular variety and the labor required to produce it. Oh yeah, and also the time it takes the fishies to produce those eggs.