Unique farm in south of Thailand milks Siberian sturgeon to get precious black caviar

The story of the unusual farm started in 2014 by two businessmen - Thai Noppadon Khamsai, and Siberian Alexey Tyutin, who came across  groundbreaking technology for sustainable production of black caviar. 

‘I worked in Thailand’s construction business for seven years, building villas and condominiums at Samui, when I felt the time had come to try something new.

'This was when I came across the work by Russian oceanologist and sturgeon expert Vasily Krasnoborodko, who showed a safe way to get black caviar without killing fish’, said Novosibirsk-born Tyutin. 

The groundbreaking technology was used to set up a joint Russian-Thai ‘Caviar House’ company, with a sturgeon fishery built some 200 kilometres from Hua Hin in the southwest of Thailand. 

Today the farm produces two tonnes of high-quality black caviar a year, currently all used up by the local market. Picture: Caviar House

The partners bought twenty five thousand juvenile sturgeons and mixed sturgeon and beluga fish, and designed a complicated cooling system.

While energy bills are up to $9,000 a month, the big advantage of the tropical climate is that sturgeon mature almost twice as fast as in Russia.

‘Today we have hundreds of healthy, happy sturgeon in our swimming pools. 

‘Here in Thailand they mature by the age of six, thanks to warmer water, while in Russia you can only start milking the caviar after ten or eleven years. Our aim is to keep this rare ‘dinosaur’ fish happy and alive for as long as possible’, Alexey Tyutin said.

Today the farm produces two tonnes of high-quality black caviar a year, currently all used up by the local market.

The next step would be to start exporting Thai black caviar to the world.