Russia reveals huge caviar surplus

The production of red caviar in Russia has reached its highest level in over a decade, an industry group has reported.

Between January and October, Russian fisheries produced 22,288 tons of salmon caviar, the highest output since 2010, the All-Russian Association of Fishery Producers said this week. This year’s volume is 2.6 times higher than the output during the same ten months of last year, the association added.

“The positive trend we observe in red caviar production this year is connected to the successful salmon fishing season in the Far East. Our fishermen caught roughly 609,000 tons of Pacific salmon,” the association’s president, German Zverev, said in a Telegram post.

“By the end of the year, the caviar output could exceed 25,000 tons, while the annual consumption has averaged between 15,000 and 20,000 tons over the past five years,” he added. Red caviar is a popular festive delicacy in Russia, and is usually in high demand over the Christmas and New Year holiday season. It comes from wild fish, as well as from farmed salmon.

Russia supplies the caviar to international markets, with exports having nearly doubled between 2016 and 2020. The main customers for the Russian delicacy were Ukraine and Belarus, as well as the US and European countries. Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022 and the implementation of trade restrictions by the EU and US, exports have seen a significant decline.

According to the Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), international sales of red caviar dropped by 46% between January and October 2023 compared to the same period last year.

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