Caviar to be Made in UAE

In Abu Dhabi, a new caviar farm hopes to produce 30 tons of black eggs each year for the global caviar market.

The royal caviar company has built its 50,000 square meters’ fish breeding farm in Abu Dhabi’s industrial area. The farm includes 18 tons of fish and is expecting 124 tons of fish to be added this year.

Muhaned Abu Awad: "We will hopefully be able to produce 35 tons of caviar annually which we expect can satisfy ten percent of the global demand."

The most expensive type of caviar, the beluga caviar costs $10 per gram. The UAE produced caviar will cost between four to six US dollars per gram.

The company is owned by Bin Salem Holding, one of UAE’s largest family-owned company groups. It plans to start retailing its caviar in the second half of 2012.

The market’s main target is to sell almost half of its products to UAE locals. The company’s commercial director, Robert Harper, said that the UAE has an estimated demand of 14 tons of caviar per year. He said the royal company aims to produce sustainably sourced caviar, at a time, when stocks of caviar are declining because of poaching and illegal trade.

Robert Harper: “What we intend to do, over time, is reintroduce back into the wild some of the caviar, I am sorry, some of the sturgeon that we have raised right here in our farm, so in the long run, we will actually, in a lot of different ways, have a very, very positive effect on an otherwise dangerous and endangered environmental situation.”

The royal company said it will be recycling 90 percent of its water and will use the rest of it for irrigation, while fish remains will be used as fertilizers.


Speakers:
Muhaned Abu Awad -plant production manager
Robert Harper - Royal Caviar Group Commercial Director

Voice:
Naser ElTibi