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Published
Thursday, January 29, 2004
U.S. Caviar Producers Hope for a Ban on Beluga
By DOUG SIMPSON
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- The small but growing American caviar industry is hoping
for a boost from federal authorities, who are considering a halt to
trade of the priciest caviar from the Caspian Sea.
The ban would block imports of beluga caviar -- mouth-watering eggs
from the Caspian's largest sturgeon, a 250 million-year-old species
that has been ravaged by overfishing and pollution.
The deadline for a ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
Saturday, according to spokeswoman Pat Fisher. The agency has given
no indication yet which way it will go.
While beluga importers hope it won't happen, some American producers
think a ban could open up new markets for the eggs they harvest from
such fish as white sturgeon in the West and shovelnose sturgeon and
paddlefish in the South and Midwest.
"I'm sure our business
will increase," said John Burke, whose Louisiana Caviar Co. makes
its Cajun Caviar with eggs from fish called bowfin, or choupiquet,
in the Atchafalaya River.
Many aficionados of the best caviar scoff at the notion of turning
to the American product, which is far cheaper. Some varieties sell
for $13 per ounce, compared with $90 for top beluga.
You get what you pay for, they contend, thinking that none of the
American varieties have the complex, rich flavor of Caspian eggs.
"American caviar is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to the
Caspian counterpart," said Eve Vega, executive director of New York-based
Petrossian Inc., a major Caspian caviar seller.
Vega thinks that, if a ban is ordered, true caviar lovers, and their
suppliers, will take a step down to the Caspian's other, lower priced
varieties: osetra and sevruga. They won't go near the American stuff,
she said.
Stoltz Sea Farm, the biggest U.S. producer, begs to disagree. Chuck
Edwards, marketing manager for the Sacramento, Calif.based company,
says its farmraised white sturgeon eggs, sold as Sterling Caviar,
are on a par with osetra and sevruga in both price and quality.
The company sold about 6 million tons of the eggs last year, and its
egg production has risen nearly every year since it began selling
in the mid-1980s, he said. He said the company does not yet make a
profit, mainly because female white sturgeon must be at least eight
years old before they can produce eggs. He declined to say when the
company would be profitable.
Stoltz's parent company, London-based Stolt-Nielsen SA, a shipping,
transportation and seafood company, declined to release revenue figures
for its Sacramento sturgeon farm.
No one tracks overall industry production.
U.S. varieties have earned a place at many upscale restaurants around
the country. Burke's clients in New Orleans include the famed Commander's
Palace and the restaurants of celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.
Tory McPhail, executive chef at Commander's, said he's refused to
serve imported caviar for several years.
"American caviar
is cleaner, fresher, and it has as wide a range or wider than anything
you get out of the Caspian," McPhail said. "Serving local caviar is
the best way I know of to really swank up a meal."
A coalition of environmental groups known as Caviar Emptor petitioned
the Fish and Wildlife Service to declare beluga a U.S. endangered
species, which would lead to a ban.
The group's studies found a 90 percent decline in the Caspian beluga
population over 20 years. The United States imports about 60 percent
of the product, said Ellen Pikitch, a University of Miami marine biologist
who led the research.
The ban proposal is controversial, opposed even by some environmentalists.
They say demand from Europe would remain high, and Caspian sturgeon
would be better protected with lower fishing quotas and tighter international
trade restrictions.
The Soviet Union once had strict control over the Caspian sturgeon
population and the caviar business. When the government fell, lucrative
black markets and lax controls in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and
Turkmenistan led to fishing far beyond quotas. Gangsters are thought
to control the black market.
The World Wildlife Fund is also concerned about an increase in U.S.
caviar production if a ban is put in place, saying the harvests threaten
paddlefish and shovelnose populations.
"Certainly it would
put more pressure on the native species," said Craig Hoover, a wildlife
trade monitor for the WWF.
On the Net: Caviar Emptor: www.caviaremptor.org; U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service: www.fws.gov
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