Caviar Export Ban Spurs Trade on Black Market, Petrossian Says

By Warren Giles

Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- A global ban on wild caviar is spurring illegal trade and failing to conserve sturgeon stocks in the Caspian Sea, said Armen Petrossian, head of the company that introduced caviar to the West after the Russian Revolution.

Wild caviar exports this year are limited to 46 metric tons, 96 percent of which comes from Iran. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species refused to approve other sales in a bid to reverse an estimated 30 percent drop in the number of Caspian Sea sturgeon in the last two years.

``Banning all exports from the Caspian gives no room for the region to respond to demand by legal means and leaves the door wide open to the illegal market,'' Petrossian said in a Sept. 15 interview in Paris. Next month, he will press Geneva-based CITES to approve export licenses for a limited quantity of the caviar already collected this year.

As farmed caviar becomes more available, consumers will favor it over the often inconsistent quality of illegal caviar, Petrossian said. He estimates that production of farmed varieties may triple, to reach 150 tons within five years.

The Petrossian business, founded in Paris in 1920, is considered the world reference for caviar prices and has annual revenue of about 40 million euros ($51 million). It owns restaurants and shops in Paris, New York and Los Angeles and sells a 50-gram (1 3/4 ounces) tin of Imperial Persicus, the Iranian wild caviar licensed for export this year, for $391, or $7,600 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) on its Web site.

Most Vulnerable

Petrossian's view isn't shared by environmental groups, which say sturgeon stocks are so depleted they're on the brink of extinction.

``We'll be urging CITES to keep the trade closed because the population is just not healthy enough,'' said Dawn Martin, executive director of SeaWeb, a Washington-based environmental group that campaigns to conserve marine stocks.

After 3,000 years of humans catching the 27 different varieties of sturgeon, the fish ``is the single most-vulnerable wildlife resource in the world,'' said Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science in New York.

Caviar hasn't always been popular. When Petrossian's father and uncle offered caviar at a gastronomic exhibition in Paris in 1931, visitors spat it out, he said.

Sturgeon in the U.S. and France were first caught and prized for their boneless meat because the fish, which pre-dates the dinosaurs, evolved with a skeleton of cartilage and has bony plates rather than scales. Sturgeon is vulnerable as it lives in both salt and fresh water and scientists know little about its migrations.

Illegal Trade

Caviar is both rare and expensive because sturgeon species mature slowly, only producing eggs at seven to 15 years old, and only every two to six years after that.

The beluga sturgeon is the world's most expensive fish, and takes 15 years to mature. It can live for a century in the wild and grow up to 6 meters (20 feet), weigh 1,000 kilograms producing 10 percent of its weight in roe.

Illegal trade in caviar worldwide, which is estimated to be worth as much as $500 million a year, or five times the legal trade, has slashed sturgeon stocks in the Caspian. Authorities in the European Union and Switzerland have seized almost 12,000 kilograms of illegal caviar in the last five years, according to environmental group TRAFFIC International.

Farmed Caviar

At present, farmed caviar can't meet the demand created by the shortage of wild roe, said Alan Jones, who produces 10 tons of farmed caviar a year near Bordeaux in France and counts Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Carrefour SA among his clients.

Customers turn to farmed caviar because they've ``become fed up with the variability of the price, quality and supply of wild caviar,'' Jones said in an interview. He expects his company, which markets caviar under the name Caviar d'Aquitaine, will double production in the next seven or eight years.

``With stocks in the Caspian in free fall, we can see the market for farmed caviar is growing and the market undersupply will continue for another two or three years,'' Jones said.

Philippe Etchebest, whose restaurant at the Hostellerie de la Plaisance in St. Emilion has a Michelin star, has been serving Jones's caviar for the last decade.

``Without Iranian or Russian caviar, consumers will fall back on caviars such as Caviar d'Aquitaine, and I'm delighted because these guys have bust a gut producing a quality product,'' said Etchebest.

Farmed caviar, celebrity chefs, customs officials enforcing the trade and consumer education are all vital to save wild sturgeon stocks, Petrossian said.

``If you eat black-market caviar, not only is it immoral, but you are acting against what we're trying to do, which is to protect the sturgeon,'' he said. ``The Russians call me Don Quixote, because they think I'm an idealist to imagine there is a way to balance the market. But I'm in it for the long term. It's my passion.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Warren Giles in Geneva at wgiles@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 21, 2006 01:47 EDT

		Email this article Printer friendly format				RSS