ABU DHABI: The emirate is talking caviar on a scale that would make czars blush.
Abu Dhabi - which gave the world its first gold- bar automated teller machine and a Christmas tree so chock-full of bling it earned a place in the Guinness World Records - has now said it will be host to the world's largest indoor caviar farm.
When the factory reaches full production, expected in 2015, it will churn out 35 tonnes of the prized sturgeon fish eggs a year - which is equivalent to a quarter or more of what the world produces annually now.
The Royal Caviar Company is housed in a low- rise building the size of six soccer fields in the Mussafah industrial area - with cement factories, rental car depots and distribution firms as its neighbours. Yet, inside, organisers say, conditions are even better than in the Caspian Sea that sturgeon call home.
'In the wild, sturgeon are available only four months of the year,' said Mr Christoph Hartung, chairman of United Food Technologies, the German company that is providing the technology for the farm. 'Inside the farm,' he said, 'it is always summer for the fish.'
The US$120 million (S$148 million) indoor farm holds 80 tubs in three sizes. They can accommodate the sturgeon at every stage of growth, from the tiny tadpole-like fry that emerge from the eggs to the fully grown specimens, which can reach up to 3m in length and weigh 7kg.
From hatchery to harvest, the pricey creatures are coddled in the piscine version of five-star luxury. Food robots dispatch brine shrimp for the newly hatched fry and dry feed for the older fish at synchronised times. Water in the tanks is recycled through a triple-filtration system at least 20 times a day. A computerised monitoring system makes sure temperatures remain between 15 deg C and 20 deg C, depending on where the fish are in their life cycle.
Should anything go awry, a control room in Germany is alerted, and text alerts appear immediately on the cellphones of those on shift in Abu Dhabi.
'If you don't have good fish, they will not give you anything,' said plant production manager Muhaned Abu Awad. 'You have to pamper the fish.'
Abu Dhabi's taste for caviar has grown alongside its economic prowess.
For now, Russian and other European expatriates are the most voracious customers locally, but Emiratis and other Gulf residents are increasingly seeking out the precious roe - which can cost as much as US$9 a gram - as a symbol of wealth.
Furthermore, Royal Caviar sees its location in the Gulf as a strategic advantage in servicing booming appetites among the newly wealthy in Asian markets, especially China.
Currently, demand for the culinary delicacy is estimated at 360 tonnes a year globally, while supply is topping at 110 tonnes, according to Royal Caviar. In 2006, the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species acted to limit the export of wild sturgeon from the Caspian Sea. This move has created business opportunities for investors in sturgeon farms, even those in the desert.
As a result, in Abu Dhabi, the Bin Salem Group, a family-run conglomerate based in the emirate, decided to team up with United Food Technologies.
The two companies boast that their water-intensive farm is environmentally friendly. Any wastewater that cannot be reused through the filtration system will be turned over to the Abu Dhabi Municipality for use in irrigation throughout the city. After the eggs have been harvested and the fish fillets cut, the rest of the fish - the skin, bones and head - will be ground into compost and used as fertiliser.
About 8,500 fish were flown in from Germany earlier this year to stock the farm. Royal Caviar expects a further 47,000 sturgeon to be delivered this year. The farm's first caviar and sturgeon fillets could appear in local restaurants and stores by next summer.
NEW YORK TIMES
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