For now, they are just juvenile sturgeon, still far from being able to reproduce, but their potential as producers of the precious caviar already makes them interesting for those who deal closely with this delicacy. Ten top chefs and sub-chefs, who work in highly regarded national restaurants, some with Michellin stars, visited the company Caviar Portugal, which is taking its first steps to produce caviar at the University of Algarve.
Visitors, including Chef Vincent Farges, "from Guincho's restaurant" and Chef Benoit Sinthon, "from the Four Seasons, from Madeira", were interested in getting to know the company and being "the first to try it". » the caviar that it will produce.
«Some renowned restaurant chefs toured the Algarve to visit different Algarve producers. And they decided to come here, to see what we were doing with the sturgeons», revealed one of the promoters of Caviar Portugal Paulo Pedro, speaking to Sul Informação and to Radio University of Algarve RUA FM (102.7 FM).
“They wanted to know the entire production process and how we were thinking of taking the business forward, what we would produce in the future and under what conditions. They found it all very interesting, they weren't expecting to find an idea like this here in the Algarve. Most didn't even know the project», he revealed.
In the end, Paulo Pedro was «with the impression that they were very impressed and enthusiastic about what could come out of here». "Of course, we discussed a lot the issue of quality and taste, whether this product will be better than others on the market," he said.
For now, Caviar Portugal still has no product to prove, since the production of sturgeon in aquaculture and eventual extraction of its roe, the well-known caviar, is a long-term project. It will still take a few years for these juveniles to grow old enough to mate.
Until then there are a lot of expenses, there will have to be an upgrade in the sturgeon shelter area. It takes a lot of space and advanced equipment, something that Caviar Portugal is currently looking to secure, but which will cost around 3 million euros. The “carrot” for investors is the high market price of caviar, whose kilograms can reach prices close to a thousand dollars.
As sturgeon is a worldwide protected species, chefs must now seek to acquire caviar from aquaculture productions such as the one that Caviar Portugal proposes to promote.
“There are 25 species of sturgeon, most of them are threatened. But you can find, in North America, sturgeon that grows in a natural environment. But Europe's is very much threatened. The vast majority of caviar on the market comes from Aquaculture», illustrated Paulo Pedro.
The Caviar Portugal project was born within UAlg, an institution to which they still have a strong connection. The project to produce this delicacy in our country was one of the winners of the last contest «Ideias em Caixa», promoted by CRIA – Division of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer of the Algarve university and the institution also provided a physical space to incubate this young company.
Comments