STORY:
Millennium Caviar Shortage

Russian delicacies skyrocketing in price due to New Year's Eve demand

Stealing a line from world-traveler Robin Leech, "champagne wishes and caviar dreams" may be just that on at parties on New Year's Eve. Reports of a looming champagne shortage has driven up the cost of the bubbly. Now caviar producers are issuing a similar warning of a caviar crisis making the famous TV personality's phrase even more appropriate. Poaching, pollution and disappearing spawning grounds of the best black caviar from sturgeons caught mainly in the Caspian Sea is the reason.

News accounts say Russian producers and importers have raised prices as much as 45-percent this year because of the increased demand for New Year's Eve parties. Experts says one ounce of the famous beluga caviar rose $20 to about $75 an ounce this year over last year's prices.

Geneva-based Caviar House AG, with 40 gourmet food shops worldwide, estimates worldwide demand at about 350 tons. The total for all of 1998 was 200 tons with little more than half coming from Russia's Caspian Sea area.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the airlines, which account for half of caviar purchases, will be hit the hardest. Caviar may no longer be part of first class service.

The reasons the low supply, high demand and high prices are numerous. The Russian government decreased caviar production after quotas were implemented in 1998 in response to an international trade agreement. Russian officials estimate as much as 100 tons of caviar are poached or harvested illegally annually. That's as much as Russia produces on an annually basis. And the United States has trade embargoes on countries like Iran that also produce caviar, preventing cheaper caviar from entering the country.

Source: Associated Press

DATE: 07/30/99

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