Kaluga Queen is a Chinese brand of

caviar Caviar (also known as caviare; from fa, خاویار, khâvyâr, egg-bearing) 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 te ...

made by the caviar company Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-Tech Co., Ltd. The company produces 60 tonnes of

annually, making it the largest producer of caviar in the world and responsible for 30% of world production. Kaluga Queen supplies caviar for 21 of the 26 3-starred Michelin restaurants in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

History

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 The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS) (; Pinyin: Zhōngguó shuǐchǎn Kēxuéyánjiūyuàn) is a large fisheries research institute. It was founded in 1978 under the Ministry of Agriculture in the People's Republic of China. It is a lea ...

. The caviar processing facility was constructed in 2004 and the Kaluga Queen brand created in the following year. Several years after the founding of the company,

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

imposed a severe curtailment of wild caviar from the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

region, creating an opportunity for caviar farming startups to take market share from the traditional caviar powers of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Production

The sturgeon are farmed at

Qiandao Lake 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. Geography 1,078 large islands dot the lake and a f ...

, a man-made lake surrounded by little in the way of industry. There are about 50,000 sturgeon maturing at the farm. 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. The mature sturgeon are shipped in water-filled trucks from the lake to a processing facility in Quzhou. At the facility the sturgeon's eggs are taken out and "checked, re-rinsed, salted, and sealed in tins in less than 10 minutes". The sturgeon without eggs is smoked and exported mostly to

. The company raises 5 different species of sturgeon each producing a different variety including

beluga The beluga whale (/bɪˈluːɡə/) (Delphinapterus leucas) is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus Delphinapterus. It is also known as the wh ...

Reception

Kaluga Queen's caviar has been favorably reviewed. A writer for ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' praised the brand's Schrenckii caviar as having peerless "power and intensity". French chef

Alain Ducasse Alain Ducasse (; born 13 September 1956) is a French-born Monégasque chef. He operates a number of restaurants including Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester which holds three stars (the top rating) in the Michelin Guide. Early life and career ...

serves it at his portfolio of restaurants. 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. At the

2016 G20 Hangzhou summit The 2016 G20 Hangzhou summit was the eleventh meeting of the Group of Twenty (G20). It was held on 4–5 September 2016 in the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang. It was the first ever G20 summit to be hosted in China and the second in an Asian coun ...

, which was held in the company's home province of Zhejiang, world leaders attending the summit, were served Kaluga Queen caviar.

References

{{reflist Companies based in Zhejiang Food and drink companies of China Chinese brands