Black caviar exports from Pridnestrovie inaugurated with Danish partner

Black Russian Caviar is among the best in the world. Now, PMR enters this lucrative export market with 5 tons per year

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - With a location next door to some of the best caviar in the world, the Black Sea Beluga, Pridnestrovie is now entering the caviar market in a big way. The doors have just been opened for the first of six aquaculture farms in the export orientered country. With production revving up, another five facilities are being constructed, and the total output will reach 5 tons between 2010 and 2013.

Construction on the first production module started in June of 2006, and opened its doors on 15 December at a final cost of $500,000 dollars. Since then, a total of 17,000 sturgeons are already making their home in Pridnestrovie: Many of them are Sterlet (acipenser ruthenus), one of the smaller species of sturgeon. Over the course of 2007, the number of local sturgeon will nearly double, to 32,000. These are being bought from Russia, but in 2008, the plant will be able to independently reproduce the species.

The owner of the plant, Tiraspol-based Sheriff, turned to Billund Aquakultur Service ApS as its technology partner. The Danish firm is the leading company in the world when it comes to design and management of modern fish farms. It has twenty years experience in making environmentally friendly intensive fish farms, and clients worldwide. It has built high technology recirculation fish farming facilities in Chile, Norway, Italy, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Iran, China, Australia, Spain, unrecognized Taiwan, Malaysia, Germany and its home country, Denmark.

Protection of endangered species

Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga caviar all come from nearly extinct sturgeon species due to overfishing. Farm raised sturgeon is now making its way into the marketplace.

The production facility in Pridnestroviue is committed to aggressive reinvestment into and preservation of the Black Sea regional caviar, as well as the continued development of sustainable aquaculture alternatives. Aquaculture is the cultivation of natural sturgeon. The term is distinguished from fishing by the idea of active human effort in maintaining or increasing the species involved, as opposed to simply taking them from the wild.

In the early 1900s, both Canada and the United States were major suppliers of caviar to Europe, harvesting the eggs from Shortnose sturgeon that spawned in East Coast rivers. However, today the Shortnose sturgeon is listed as vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of endangered species and as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service banned the import of Beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea in September 2005 in an attempt to protect the endangered Beluga sturgeon. A month later, it extended the ban to Beluga caviar from the Black Sea basin for similar reasons. Pridnestrovie is located right next to this area, the Black Sea, and its famous Beluga caviar.

Due to recent Export Quota Changes from CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), shipments of caviar have been reduced.

In January 2006, CITES, the convention for trade in endangered species, announced that they were "unable to approve the export quotas" for 2006 for caviar from wild stocks, and with the trend continuing, this guarantees a huge market for environmentally-friendly farm produced caviar.

Environmentally friendly business opportunity

" - When we learned of this latest ban, we called Billund," says Andrey Domashkan, vice president of Sheriff. According to him, the company saw a niche market with a "green" and ecologically correct business opportunity. It is expected that the first ton of sturgeon will be harvested in 2010, and that the facilities will reach full capacity of five tons per year by 2013.

The production complex which is now constructed in Pridnestrovie is unique in Europe. No other facility like it exists in this part of the world, and worldwide, it is the most modern of its kind. Every control and feeding module is fully computerized, and the chemical balanced water recirculation is monitored by computer 24 hours a day.

With an initial investment of $3 million dollars, the six farms will - when finished - be able to supply 100% of the markets in neighboring Moldova and Ukraine, and will also have a large presence in the Western European export markets.

Retail prices of the ''food of the Tsars'' are high worldwide, even for farmed black caviar. In the USA, Caviar Direct sells a 2 oz tin of Black Russian Farm Osetra for $152. In Europe, 113 grams of this "Black Russian" in a glass jar typically costs around 180 euro.

Pridnestrovie, also known as Transnistria or Transdniester, is one of the smallest new countries in Europe. It has the same number of inhabitants as Montenegro, the latest U.N. member which declared independence in 2006. Its territory is twice the size of Luxembourg, and it has a population which is twice the size of Iceland. Denmark, another relatively small country, has successfully found small niche economies in which the industries of small and nimble countries can be internationally competitive. Now, with its latest environmentally friendly foray into the worldwide caviar market, Pridnestrovie is hoping to find a niche of its own. And with prices skyrocketing, it can become a lucrative market for small, technology-oriented exporters.

See also:
» As trade relations expand, international diplomatic relations are next

On the web:
» Unique sturgeon-breeding production complex started its work in Transnistria

(photos: Sheriff, New Region Press)