Calvisius: Sustainable Caviar from Calvisano, Lombardy
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Caviar has been around for thousands of years. In ancient Roman times, fish roe was considered a by-product of sturgeon meat. Today the tables have turned, and caviar is a sought-after delicacy for its rich, buttery flavor. Rising demand has reduced sturgeon populations, and the fish has become an endangered species.
To learn more, Eataly Magazine editors went behind the scenes to interview the team at Calvisius, an Italian producer of high-quality caviar made with sustainable practices.
For Calvisius, sustainability means practices that integrate all the needs of the business and take the best possible care of the animals. The team recreated farming conditions and an environment as close as possible to the natural habitat of the fish, which results in a higher-quality product. It also considers how the future of both the business and the fish will be affected.
Calvisius is located in Calvisano, a typical farm town of the Po Valley in Lombardy, in northern Italy. The farm started as a solution to a thermal problem: cooling water coming from a local steel plant. A system of pipelines cooled the exhaust water through contact with water pools, so it could be reintroduced into the environment for irrigation and farming. That solved the heating problem and also created the perfect environment for raising sturgeon, a mini-ecosystem that produces the caviar.
The fish live in the purest water possible: fresh spring water from local rivers. Their feed is entirely organic and reproduces the algae that live naturally where sturgeon originally lived. Sturgeon are fragile and temperamental. If they are scared or stressed, the quality of the caviar suffers or they produce no caviar at all.
The team points to three differences. First, the caviar comes straight from the source: a fully traceable farm that controls the whole production process. Other products sometimes come from brokers, who have less control over quality. Second, the purity of the water. Many caviar farmers in other countries do not have to meet Italian standards, such as limits on hormones and additives and rules on label transparency and species identification. Third, freshness. Some producers heat-treat caviar to extend shelf life. Calvisius caviar is fresh and untreated, and it follows the Malossol method, so it contains only salt and sturgeon roe. Salt content is a maximum of 3.4%, while other producers allow 4 to 12%.
By farm-raising endangered species, Calvisius has helped repopulate some sturgeon stock worldwide. It also saved an Italian species native to the Adriatic Sea.
Only sturgeon roe and salt. Roe from other fish is simply fish roe. In Russian culture people spoke of black and red caviar, but "red caviar" is technically trout or salmon roe.
The calendar follows the lifecycle of the fish. Until a sturgeon is about 5 years old, scientists cannot tell whether it is female or male. At that point every fish gets a medical examination, and the females are separated from the males. Extraction generally runs from November to April. The roe is washed, prepared and salted, and curing takes two to three months.
Every part of the sturgeon is used. Sturgeon meat is served fresh and smoked in Italy, and some chefs are working with Calvisius to make it popular again. The company also smokes sturgeon and other fish.
It varies by species, and it also sets the value of each caviar. Siberian sturgeon take 6 to 7 years, Oscietra sturgeon 13 to 14 years and White Sturgeon 11 to 12 years. For the best and biggest roe, Calvisius waits 14 years for White Sturgeon.
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