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Food & Beverage Industry

Operators not very merry over fine foods' fortunes: weather, politics and species endangerment increase prices

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 22, 2003 by Milford Prewitt

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Rod Mitchell of Brown Trading, a Maine-based specialty foods importer and distributor that specializes in Caspian Sea caviar, said the plight of sturgeon is not so bad as SeaWeb suggests. He explained that an underground mountain range splits the Caspian Sea into two nearly distinct fisheries, allowing the Iranian side of the sea to produce a more plentiful harvest while the Russian side is under pressure from authorities clamping down on poaching.

As for American caviar, Mitchell predicted it would be some time before the product enjoys widespread acceptance among gourmets.

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Georgette Farkas, a spokeswoman for noted New York chef Daniel Boulud of Restaurant Daniel, said the restaurant had tried and disliked American caviar. Noting that Boulud cans a private label of caviar for the home gourmet, Farkas said Caspian Sea caviar is an essential menu item that plays a role in Restaurant Daniel's renown.

"Daniel simply does not consider American caviar to be of the same quality as the Caspian variety," she maintained. "We are not in a position to lower standards in the face of rising costs. If anything, we must do everything to maintain and improve standards That's all our reputation rides on."

Nonetheless, such famed chef-restaurateurs as Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, Charlie Palmer, Marcus Samuelsson and Wolfgang Puck are quoted in marketing materials from a sturgeon-farming company in California, Tsar Nicoulai, as heaping lavish praise on its California Estate Osetra caviar. The aquacultured product, from the same people who were commissioned by the Chinese government to help develop its caviar market, also is featured at Tsar Nicoulai's own Caviar Cafe in San Francisco's landmark Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. The producer boasts of its sustainable, "earth-friendly" techniques for using waters from its own natural aquifers and reducing the threat to declining wild stocks.

Meanwhile, the founder of Newark, N.J.-based luxury foods vendor D'Artagnan, Ariane Daguin, said her company, though best known for its foie gras, struck a deal two months ago to begin distributing caviar produced from farm-raised sturgeon in Southern France.

Before signing the deal, Daguin said, clients of hers--including some of the most recognized and admired chefs in fine dining--sampled the farm-raised caviar from France and "were flabbergasted by the quality."

"I don't think it is right for people to derive pleasure from an endangered species, like Caspian Sea sturgeon," she asserted.

Ducks and geese also are considered endangered, at least by opponents of foie-gras production methods. Although animal rights activists continue to complain about the force feeding of the birds that enlarges their livers to yield foie gras, most chefs know the animals are not maltreated, Daguin said.

Defending the product that made D'Artagnan a household name in some upscale kitchens, Daguin noted that the price of foie gras actually is going down, from $42 a pound when she started her company 19 years ago to about $29 today.

Food & Beverage Industry

Operators not very merry over fine foods' fortunes: weather, politics and species endangerment increase prices

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 22, 2003 by Milford Prewitt

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