The red caviar prices are growing sharply in Russia, the Kommersant daily reported. Red caviar sale prices went up by about 70% from the middle of June in the Kamchatka Territory, where 40%-60% of all Russian red caviar is produced annually. A not quite successful beginning of the salmon fishing season is to blame for this fact, as there was less fish that it was expected.
“The sale prices of the fishermen skyrocketed from 1,200-1,500 roubles for one kilogram to 2,100-2,500 roubles for one kilogram of red caviar in Kamchatka for the past month,” head of the committee of fisheries and aquaculture of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs German Zverev said. In his words, this is a response to low figures of salmon catches, from which the red caviar production depends directly.
The annual output of packed red caviar makes 11,000-13,000 tonnes worth of 28.6-30 billion roubles.
The expectations for big salmon catches in Kamchatka did not come true, head of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Kamchatka Sergei Timoshenko explained. According to the fishermen, the overall catches from the beginning of the fishing season reached about 50,000 tonnes that is about 40% lower than the level of catches in the previous year for the same period of time. Now German Zverev estimates direct losses of the Far Eastern fishery industry that it sustained over the idleness of the fishing vessels, the remuneration to seasonal workers and the transfer of the ships, at 400-450 million roubles.
The Federal Fishery Agency is not inclined to dramatize the situation. “The fishing season will last for another several months, and the fish, which did not reach our coasts for some reasons, should reach it, according to the forecasts,” head of the public relations centre of the agency Alexander Savelyev said.