Industry | Aquaculture |
---|---|
Founded | 2003 |
Headquarters | Kecheng District, Quzhou, Zhejiang, China |
Area served | Worldwide |
Products | Caviar |
Website | www |
Kaluga Queen is a Chinese brand of caviar made by the caviar company Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-Tech Co., Ltd. The company produces 60 tonnes of caviar annually, making it the largest producer of caviar in the world and responsible for 30% of world production. [1] [2] [3] Kaluga Queen supplies caviar for 21 of the 26 3-starred Michelin restaurants in Paris. [2]
Kaluga Queen was founded in 2003 by Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-Tech Co., Ltd., a caviar company affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences. [4] [5] The caviar processing facility was constructed in 2004 and the Kaluga Queen brand created in the following year. [5]
Several years after the founding of the company, CITES imposed a severe curtailment of wild caviar from the Caspian Sea region, creating an opportunity for caviar farming startups to take market share from the traditional caviar powers of Russia and Iran. [1]
The sturgeon are farmed at Qiandao Lake, a man-made lake surrounded by little in the way of industry. [1] [4] There are about 50,000 sturgeon maturing at the farm. [1] At age 6 when the sex of the sturgeon becomes apparent, the males are separated from females for immediate processing while the females continue to be nurtured in pens. [3]
The mature sturgeon are shipped in water-filled trucks from the lake to a processing facility in Quzhou. [1] At the facility the sturgeon's eggs are taken out and "checked, re-rinsed, salted, and sealed in tins in less than 10 minutes". [1] [4] [5] The sturgeon without eggs is smoked and exported mostly to Russia. [4]
The company raises 5 different species of sturgeon each producing a different variety including beluga. [3]
Kaluga Queen's caviar has been favorably reviewed. A writer for Newsweek praised the brand's Schrenckii caviar as having peerless "power and intensity". [1] French chef Alain Ducasse serves it at his portfolio of restaurants. [5]
Media coverage of Kaluga Queen has often focused on the Chinese origins of the brand but not the quality, noting the lack of association between China and caviar. A piece in that's magazine noted that while Kaluga Queen is "hugely successful", the brand still finds it difficult to gain recognition in the international community. [6]
At the 2016 G20 Hangzhou summit, which was held in the company's home province of Zhejiang, world leaders attending the summit, including the Russian President Vladimir Putin, were served Kaluga Queen caviar. [3]
The Amur, or Heilong Jiang, is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China. The Amur proper is 2,824 kilometres (1,755 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 1,855,000 km2 (716,000 sq mi). Including its source river Argun, it is 4,444 km (2,761 mi) long. The largest fish species in the Amur is the kaluga, attaining a length as great as 5.6 metres (18 ft). The river basin is home to a variety of large predatory fish such as northern snakehead, Amur pike, taimen, Amur catfish, predatory carp and yellowcheek, as well as the northernmost populations of the Amur softshell turtle and Indian lotus.
Hangzhou, also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, which separates Shanghai and Ningbo. Hangzhou grew to prominence as the southern terminus of the Grand Canal and has been one of China's most renowned and prosperous cities for much of the last millennium. It is a major economic and e-commerce hub within China, and the second biggest city in Yangtze Delta after Shanghai. Hangzhou is classified as a sub-provincial city and forms the core of the Hangzhou metropolitan area, the fourth-largest in China after Guangzhou-Shenzhen Pearl River agglomeration, Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou conurbation and Beijing. As of 2019, the Hangzhou metropolitan area was estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (nominal) of 3.2 trillion yuan, making it larger than the economy of Nigeria. As of the 2020 Chinese census, it had a total population of 11,936,010 inhabitants. However, its metropolitan area, populated by 13.035 million people over an area of 8,107.9 km2 (3,130.5 sq mi), consists of all urban districts in Hangzhou and 3 urban districts of the city of Shaoxing.
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous, and are descended from other, earlier acipenseriform fish, which date back to the Early Jurassic period, some 174 to 201 million years ago. They are one of two living families of the Acipenseriformes alongside paddlefish (Polyodontidae). The family is grouped into four genera: Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus, and Pseudoscaphirhynchus. Two species may be extinct in the wild, and one may be entirely extinct. Sturgeons are native to subtropical, temperate and sub-Arctic rivers, lakes and coastlines of Eurasia and North America.
Paddlefish are a family of ray-finned fish belonging to order Acipenseriformes, and one of two living groups of the order alongside sturgeons (Acipenseridae). They are distinguished from other fish by their titular elonglated rostrums, which are thought to enhance electroreception to detect prey. Paddlefish have been referred to as "primitive fish" because Acipenseriformes are amongst the earliest diverging lineages of ray-finned fish, having diverged from all other living groups over 300 million years ago. Paddlefish are almost exclusively North American and Chinese, both extant and in the fossil record.
The American paddlefish is a species of ray-finned fish. It is the only living species of paddlefish (Polyodontidae). This family is most closely related to the sturgeons; together they make up the order Acipenseriformes, which are one of the most primitive living groups of ray-finned fish. Fossil records of other paddlefish species date back 125 million years to the Early Cretaceous, with records of Polyodon extending back 65 million years to the early Paleocene. The American paddlefish is a smooth-skinned freshwater fish with an almost entirely cartilaginous skeleton and a paddle-shaped rostrum (snout), which extends nearly one-third its body length. It has been referred to as a freshwater shark because of its heterocercal tail or caudal fin resembling that of sharks, though it is not closely related. The American paddlefish is a highly derived fish because it has evolved specialised adaptations such as filter feeding. Its rostrum and cranium are covered with tens of thousands of sensory receptors for locating swarms of zooplankton, its primary food source. The only other species of paddlefish that survived to modern times was the Chinese paddlefish, last sighted in 2003 in the Yangtze River in China and considered to have gone extinct no later than 2010.
Roe or hard roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooked ingredient in many dishes, and as a raw ingredient for delicacies such as caviar.
Caviar is a food consisting of salt-cured roe of the family Acipenseridae. Caviar is considered a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or a spread. Traditionally, the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The term caviar can also describe the roe of other species of sturgeon or other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish, or carp.
Beluga caviar is caviar consisting of the roe of the beluga sturgeon Huso huso. The fish is found primarily in the Caspian Sea, which is bordered by Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. It can also be found in the Black Sea basin and occasionally in the Adriatic Sea. Beluga caviar is the most expensive type of caviar, with market prices, at the beginning of the millennium, ranging from $7,000 to $10,000/kg.
The beluga, also known as the beluga sturgeon or great sturgeon, is a species of anadromous fish in the sturgeon family (Acipenseridae) of order Acipenseriformes. It is found primarily in the Caspian and Black Sea basins, and formerly in the Adriatic Sea. Based on maximum size, it is the third-most-massive living species of bony fish. Heavily fished for the female's valuable roe, known as beluga caviar, wild populations have been greatly reduced by overfishing and poaching, leading IUCN to classify the species as critically endangered.
The kaluga, also known as the river beluga, is a large predatory sturgeon found in the Amur River basin. With a maximum size of at least 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) and 5.6 m (18.6 ft), the kaluga is one of the biggest of the sturgeon family. Like the slightly larger beluga, it spends part of its life in salt water. Unlike the beluga, this fish has 5 major rows of dermal scutes and feeds on salmon and other fish in the Amur. They have gray-green to black backs with a yellowish green-white underbelly.
Qiandao Lake, a human-made, freshwater lake located in Chun'an County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, was formed after the completion of the Xin'an River hydroelectric station in 1959.
The lake sturgeon, also known as the rock sturgeon, is a North American temperate freshwater fish, one of about 25 species of sturgeon. Like other sturgeons, this species is a bottom feeder with evolutionarily basal traits among fish, reflecting its early divergence from the shark lineage. These traits include a partly cartilaginous skeleton, an overall streamlined shape, and skin bearing rows of bony plates on the sides and back.
Ossetra caviar is one of the most prized and expensive types of caviar. It is obtained from the Ossetra sturgeon which weighs 50-400 pounds and can live up to 50 years.
White sturgeon is a species of sturgeon in the family Acipenseridae of the order Acipenseriformes. They are an anadromous fish species ranging in the Eastern Pacific; from the Gulf of Alaska to Monterey, California. However, some are landlocked in the Columbia River Drainage, Montana, and Lake Shasta in California, with reported sightings in northern Baja California, Mexico.
The T. Marzetti Company is the Specialty Food Group of the Lancaster Colony Corporation. T. Marzetti produces numerous salad dressings, fruit and vegetable dips, frozen baked goods and specialty brand items. It is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in Central Ohio. Headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, the T. Marzetti Company was founded by Teresa Marzetti.
Caviar, sometimes Kaviar is, primarily, the name given to the luxury delicacy consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe.
Snail caviar, also known as escargot caviar or escargot pearls, is a type of caviar that consists of fresh or processed eggs of land snails. It is a luxury gourmet speciality produced in France and Poland. They were also a delicacy in the ancient world, also known as "Pearls of Aphrodite" for their supposed aphrodisiac properties.
Russian Caviar House is a Russian group of companies that grows sturgeon and sells black caviar. It is Russia's largest producer of black caviar.
Lou Wai Lou is a traditional restaurant in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, located on Gushan in the middle of the West Lake. It was established in the 28th year of the reign of Emperor Daoguang of the Qing dynasty (1848). It has been named a "China Time-honored Brand" by the Chinese government.
The Caviar of Kladovo was a type of caviar produced in eastern Serbia. It was named after the town of Kladovo, central town in the Serbian part of the Danube's Iron Gates Gorge between Serbia and Romania. Made from various fishes' roe, the caviar was granted the protected geographic designation decades ago, and was considered an expensive delicacy, which was even served on the RMS Titanic. With the construction of large dams in 1972 and 1984, jointly by two states. the fishes migrating from the Black Sea upstream the Danube were prevented from reaching their old spawning areas and the production of the caviar was discontinued in the 21st century.