How Is Caviar Made? From Sturgeon Farm to Your Table

By Alex Beleaev | Beleaev Caviar & Gourmet | beleaev.com

Most people have tasted caviar. Very few know what it takes to get those tiny, glistening pearls from a living sturgeon into a chilled tin on your table. The process is slower, more hands-on and more technically demanding than almost any other food production you can name.

We're going to walk through every stage. No shortcuts, no glamour, just the reality of how caviar production works in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Sturgeon are farmed for 5 to 25 years before they produce harvestable roe, depending on the species.
• Egg readiness is checked using ultrasound, sometimes multiple times before harvest.
• A skilled master grader hand-sorts and salt-cures every batch using the traditional malossol method.
• The entire process, from harvest to sealed tin, happens under strict temperature control within hours.

Where Does Caviar Production Start?

It starts with water. Specifically, large aquaculture facilities with precisely controlled water temperature, oxygen levels and flow rates. Wild sturgeon harvesting is effectively over: CITES regulations and the endangered status of most sturgeon species mean that virtually all legal caviar now comes from farms.

The major producing regions are Italy (particularly Brescia and Calvisano), France, China (Zhejiang province, which now produces over 60% of the world's farmed caviar according to FAO data), Uruguay, Germany and the United States.

A sturgeon farm looks nothing like your typical fish farm. The tanks are large, often circular, and the water is filtered continuously. Sturgeon are bottom-feeders in the wild, so tanks need appropriate depth and substrate. Water temperature sits between 14 and 20 degrees Celsius for most species. Too warm and the fish stress. Too cold and growth slows further.

How Long Before a Sturgeon Produces Eggs?

This is where patience becomes the defining feature of caviar production. Different species mature at wildly different rates:

Species	Common Name	Years to First Roe
Acipenser baerii	Siberian sturgeon	5-8
Acipenser gueldenstaedtii	Oscietra/Oscietra sturgeon	8-12
Acipenser stellatus	Sevruga/Stellate sturgeon	7-10
Huso huso	Beluga	18-25

During those years, every fish needs feeding, health monitoring and regular water quality checks. The feed alone is a significant expense: sturgeon eat a high-protein diet, and a mature Beluga can weigh over 100 kilograms.

Not every female produces quality roe, either. Some never develop eggs suitable for caviar. In our experience, even the best farms accept a failure rate of 10% to 15% among their breeding stock.

How Do Farmers Know When Eggs Are Ready?

You can't exactly ask a sturgeon. The industry uses ultrasound.

Starting around 6 to 12 months before the expected harvest window, technicians perform regular ultrasound scans on each female. They're looking at the size, density and development stage of the eggs. This isn't a one-time check: a single fish might be scanned three or four times before the green light is given.

Some farms also use a biopsy method, extracting a tiny sample of eggs through a small incision to assess colour, size and firmness under magnification. It's invasive but gives the most accurate picture of whether the roe has reached its peak.

The timing matters enormously. Harvest too early and the eggs are underdeveloped, soft, lacking flavour. Too late and they become overripe, the membranes toughen, and the texture turns grainy. The window can be as narrow as two to three weeks.

What Happens During the Harvest?

This is the most critical and time-sensitive part of the entire process. Once a fish is selected for harvest, speed is everything. The roe must go from fish to salt within hours to preserve its quality.

Traditional method. The sturgeon is humanely dispatched and the egg sacs (ovaries) are carefully removed by hand. A skilled technician can complete this in minutes. The sacs are then passed through a mesh screen to separate individual eggs from the connective tissue. This screening step requires a delicate touch: too much pressure crushes the eggs, too little and they won't separate cleanly.

No-kill method. Some farms now use a technique called "stripping" or "c-section" harvesting, where eggs are massaged out of the live fish or removed surgically. The fish survives and can produce roe again in two to three years. This method is more ethical but typically yields lower-quality caviar, as the eggs are often less mature than those harvested traditionally.

The separated eggs are rinsed in cold, filtered water to remove any remaining tissue and fluids. At this point, the raw roe looks quite different from finished caviar: it's lighter in colour, softer and has no salt.

How Is Caviar Graded?

Craftsmanship enters the picture at this stage. A master grader (sometimes called a "caviar master") examines the rinsed roe and assesses it on several criteria:

• Egg size. Larger eggs generally command higher prices. Beluga eggs can reach 3.5mm in diameter. Sevruga eggs are much smaller, around 2mm.
• Colour. Ranges from pale gold through olive green to deep charcoal. Lighter colours in Oscietra (sometimes called "golden caviar") are rarer and priced accordingly.
• Firmness. Eggs should pop cleanly between the tongue and palate. Soft or mushy eggs indicate overripeness or poor handling.
• Uniformity. A top-grade tin has eggs of consistent size and colour throughout. Mixed batches drop a grade.
• Aroma. Fresh roe should smell of the sea, clean and briny. Any fishiness signals a problem.

Grading takes years of training. The best graders in the industry have been doing this for 20 or 30 years, and their palate is the final quality gate. No machine can replicate this assessment reliably.

How Is the Salt-Curing Done?

Once graded, the roe moves immediately to salting. The traditional malossol method uses between 3% and 5% fine-grain salt by weight. "Malossol" is Caspian for "little salt," and the restrained approach is what separates premium caviar from the heavily preserved stuff.

The grader adds salt to a batch of roe in a large mixing bowl and gently turns it by hand. Not stirring, turning. The motion is slow and deliberate to avoid breaking any eggs. Salt draws moisture from the roe, firming the texture and developing the characteristic flavour.

Different salt levels produce different results:

Salt Level	Classification	Shelf Life	Flavour Impact
3-3.5%	Malossol (premium)	4-6 weeks refrigerated	Delicate, buttery, clean
3.5-5%	Standard	2-3 months refrigerated	Saltier, more pronounced
5-8%	Pressed/barrel-aged	6-12 months	Intense, concentrated

The malossol method is riskier because the lower salt content means a shorter shelf life and greater sensitivity to temperature. That risk is why it costs more.

Some producers add borax (E285) as a preservative, which is permitted in the EU and traditional in the original production. Others avoid it entirely, relying on salt alone and accepting the shorter shelf life. There's no universal standard here; it's a producer decision.

How Is Caviar Packed and Stored?

After salting, the caviar rests briefly (usually 5 to 15 minutes) to allow the salt to penetrate evenly. Then it's packed into tins.

Traditional caviar tins are made from lacquered metal, often with a rubber-sealed lid to create an airtight environment. The caviar is pressed gently into the tin to eliminate air pockets, and the lid is sealed. Some producers now use glass jars for smaller quantities, though metal remains the industry standard for larger formats.

The filled tins go straight into cold storage at minus 2 to plus 2 degrees Celsius. This temperature range is critical: any warmer and bacterial growth accelerates. Any colder and the eggs freeze, rupturing their membranes and destroying the texture.

From this point forward, the cold chain must remain unbroken. The FAO's Codex Alimentarius guidelines for sturgeon caviar specify continuous refrigeration at 0 to 4 degrees Celsius during distribution (CAC/RCP 66-2008), and most premium producers maintain even tighter tolerances.

What Quality Controls Exist?

Modern caviar production operates under food safety frameworks including HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) and, for EU exports, must comply with European Commission Regulation 853/2004 on food hygiene for products of animal origin.

Every batch is traceable. CITES requires a coding system on each tin that identifies the species, country of origin, year of harvest and the processing plant. That alphanumeric string on the lid of your caviar tin isn't decoration. It's a full audit trail.

Microbiological testing checks for Listeria, Salmonella and total bacterial counts. Chemical analysis confirms salt content and, where applicable, preservative levels. Any batch that fails testing is destroyed.

Further Reading

• sturgeon conservation (WWF)
• sustainable aquaculture (Marine Stewardship Council)
• Caspian Sea ecology (Britannica)

FAQ

Is all caviar made the same way?

The fundamental steps are consistent across producers: farming, maturity testing, harvesting, grading, salting and packing. But the details vary significantly. Salt levels, whether borax is used, traditional versus no-kill harvest, and the grader's personal standards all affect the final product. Two tins from different farms can taste remarkably different even when the species is identical.

Can caviar be made without killing the sturgeon?

Yes. The no-kill stripping method allows the fish to survive and produce roe again. It's gaining popularity, particularly in Germany and Italy. The trade-off is that stripped roe tends to be slightly less firm and may not achieve the highest grades. For many consumers, the ethical benefit outweighs this difference.

How is caviar different from fish roe you find in sushi restaurants?

Sushi roe (tobiko, ikura, masago) comes from flying fish, salmon or capelin. These are different species entirely, and the production process is simpler and faster since these fish mature in one to three years. True caviar comes exclusively from sturgeon and involves the grading and malossol curing process described above. The flavour profiles have almost nothing in common.

Why does the country of origin matter?

Water quality, feed composition, climate and the specific genetic strain of sturgeon all influence flavour. Chinese-farmed Baerii tastes different from French-farmed Baerii grown in Aquitaine's limestone-filtered water. Italian producers in Lombardy work with yet another terroir. Origin shapes the product just as it does with wine.

From a decade of patient farming to a few precise hours of harvesting, grading and curing, caviar is one of the most labour-intensive foods on the planet. Every tin carries the weight of that process.

Discover the full range of hand-graded, sustainably farmed caviar at Beleaev.

Explore the full caviar collection at Beleaev for next-day UK delivery.

Beleaev is a London-based caviar and gourmet house specialising in responsibly farmed Beluga, Oscietra, Sevruga, and Kaluga caviar. Next-day delivery across the United Kingdom.