Caspian Caviar : Our Caviar Supplier
When we write our blog posts, the tendency is to want to write a lot, but sometimes, in a good way, there is not that much to say because the message is simple.
In the case of Caspian Caviar, we would say they bring you high quality caviar at very fair prices.
Caspian Caviar was founded in 2000 and is today headed by Angus and his very friendly and competent staff of at least two Sarah’s and one Laura if we have our names right!
Caspian’s aim is to sell the best quality legally sourced European caviar they can source. They achieve this by working directly with the caviar farms they choose and conducting very frequent caviar tastings – surely a perk of the job!
All the Caspian Caviar range is farmed, processed and shipped under strict adherence to the CITES rules and regulations.
What does CITES mean? When Caspian started, all it’s caviar was imported from countries around the Caspian Sea, traditionally the largest area for caviar production. When the USSR collapsed, this led to the collapse of organizations responsible for sustainable exploitation of wild sturgeon stocks and hence over fishing.
As a result, in 2009, sturgeon was classified as an endangered species under CITES (the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species), which banned the export of caviar from the Caspian Sea area.
Caspian Caviar were obliged to seek sturgeon farms in Europe. A task they have achieved admirably, with most of their suppliers now being based in Northern Italy and the Aquitaine region of Western France.
Producing good quality farmed caviar is not as straight forward – many factors need to be strictly controlled – such as the diet of the sturgeon, water temperature, water quality, amount of space the sturgeon have.
Caspian spend a considerable amount of time sourcing high quality sturgeon farms in Europe, revisiting existing suppliers, frequently conducting tastings, and working directly with their suppliers to keep the supply chain as short as possible, enabling them to offer the best quality and value.
We have been stocking the Caspian range some 6 years now and almost all our sales are driven by re-orders!
They stock all the main types of caviar (beluga, an outstanding oscietra, and very good Baerii caviar)