Eighty percent of the caviar supplied to the US market comes from the Sacramento County town of Elverta. That makes the cutting-edge aquaculture at Sterling Caviar local. The caviar farm processes about 10 tons of caviar a year. Sterling Caviar's general manager Peter Struffenegger says farmed caviar has become the norm.
STRUFFENEGGER: "In the year 2000, our best guess was that about 5 percent of all caviar worldwide came from farms, and it's been 100 percent farmed from last year on."
Struffenegger's local push includes a new logo and website. He
wants to work with Sacramento area chefs to make this international
product truly local.
STRUFFENEGGER: "Caviar as a garnish will have different
characteristics that they're interested in, so you need to know how
each restaurant is using it, and that they're then grade the caviar
specific for that restaurant."
Sterling Caviar started in 1983. It is the largest caviar farm
in the world.