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Episode #81: Cyrus Tabrizi · New Worlder

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is the New Worlder Podcast and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Today we are speaking with Cyrus Tabrizi, founder of Caspian Monarch, a producer and distributor of fine Iranian caviar.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: I first met Cyrus last year when we happened to be seated together at a dinner in Udine, Italy during an event called Einprosit.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: You may have seen me writing about it on the New Worlder substack.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, after spending a few minutes with him, I began to realize how little I actually understood about caviar and where it comes from.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's considered a luxury product, that caviar is usually expensive, that Russians are known to eat a lot of it,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: The world of caviar has changed dramatically since 2008 when a global ban on caviar from Wild Sturgeon was enacted by the convention on
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: International trade in endangered species after sturgeon were being severely overfished.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now, nearly all of the world's caviar comes from farmed sturgeon.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: There are 26 different types of sturgeon, and each kind produces a unique tasting role, but the conditions in which each are being raised can vary drastically.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: The most
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Coveted caviar comes from the Beluga, followed by the Osetra sturgeons, which are originally from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: Farmed caviar, however, is coming from anywhere now.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: There are hundreds of farms all over the world.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: There's lots of caviar being farm raised in the United States.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's being raised in Uruguay.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: A ton of it is being raised in China.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: Much of it is not Osetra and Beluga but from other species.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: There is also fish roe from other kinds of fish like lumpfish or flying fish or even salmon that are sometimes called caviar though technically they do not fit the definition.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I tried Cyrus' caviar in Italy and it is indeed the great stuff.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: That much I do know.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: He explains why Caspian Monarch stands out in his words.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: They are a sustainably minded sturgeon farm in the Caspian Sea, the origin of the finest grades of caviar.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: As they are being farmed within the Caspian Sea, the natural environment these sturgeon are from, they're eating the same food they eat in the wild, they can get the highest quality caviar, according to him.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: However, I cannot even get his caviar, Iranian caviar, in the United States because of a ban on Iranian products in the United States.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: He explains why that is and how the Iranian caviar industry has a history of legal issues in the United States, despite being historically very sustainable and well managed.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: But that's why he started this business.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: He was a lawyer and he liked the challenge.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: The caviar industry is one that is ripe with fraud.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: There are scandalous producers and misleading labels, though there are ways to know if you are getting caviar from a good source.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: on Caspian Monarch's website, they actually have a way to check the origin of a tin of caviar by the CITES number on the label.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not just for their caviar, but any legally traded variety.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: For the most part, it's up to the consumer to know the difference and understand what they are buying.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about how blockchain might be used in the future to help make caviar even more transparent.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Who knew there was so much to know about caviar?
• 3:48
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• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: Just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's full of essays, guides, travel tips, recipes, ecosystem reports, and news about cuisine, mostly in the Americas.
• 4:04
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• 4:10
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• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy the show.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: Hey Cyrus, how's it going?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Glad to be here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: How are you?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm good.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Where are you at right now?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm actually in Germany, Frankfurt now.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: You travel quite a bit then, I assume.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I do.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Usually I stay in Europe or Iran.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Is there an official home?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Is Iran home or is somewhere like London?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Europe more.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Europe more.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: For the time being, yeah.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: but do you like keep an actual apartment anywhere or is it just in and out of hotels all the time um no one in London and one in Iran but otherwise it would be in hotels yeah it does get tiring yeah I'm sure all right so I I don't have a lot of people on this podcast I mean I haven't yet that
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: that run a brand or kind of the face of a brand.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it can kind of be misconstrued as, you know, product placement or advertising though, you know, that's obviously not the case here.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: And usually if I have someone on that represents a brand, it's because I want to understand how something works.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: for example I had a woman named Sorella Barada on she has the brand Simply it's in the US but you know I wanted to learn about the logistics of sourcing quinoa which you know Simply does very well and I met you very randomly at a dinner in Italy last year in
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: at Ein Prosit, the event there in Friuli.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: And after sitting with you, it was clear to me how little I actually understood about caviar.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a lot of the case?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Do most people not really understand anything about caviar, even in the food industry?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: yeah I think there's a lot of kind of mystique around it a little bit deliberately manufactured mystique in order to kind of create kind of what can I say to make knowledge elusive in the industry and most people honestly aren't eating caviar on a daily basis so there's no reason for them to be too aware of it I would say that people in Europe
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: in general the most knowledgeable about caviar compared to the rest of the world and to be blunt I find the Americans the least knowledgeable about it
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean it's probably not just about caviar but yeah it's uh that kind of goes across the category sometimes but um but I think it's changing a little bit like I mean I never used to see caviar anywhere in the US you know just you know at a few French restaurants here and there but definitely there's way more caviar going around than ever before I think and
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: it's you know there was a story in where was it in like New York Magazine the other day
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: about you know how much caviar is in New York how much caviar there is in New York and like it used to be something special but now it's like you can get on fried chicken you get on potato chips on tater tots you know and it's I wrote down the line because I thought it was interesting that they said instead of making dishes feel more rarefied all the scoops and bumps and optional supplements have made caviar seem ordinary
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: and I know it's not ordinary I know it's it's something really special and after meeting with you I realized how special and unique caviar can be and like the history behind it and but it's like there's so much watered down caviar and I don't know water down is the right word but it's just like there's a lot of kind of mediocre caviar on the market now and
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: I see where you're coming from.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say that since the kind of advent of farmed caviar and since wild caviar has become illegal, it's not that the actual quantity
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: has changed so much rather it's that the species that are being farmed are ones that people didn't even bother to catch in the wild so and the ones that are being farmed are the ones that are actually cheaper and therefore they've become more accessible and therefore it's kind of just seen much more and it's also kind of the definition of caviar nowadays a lot of any fish roe
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Cyrus Tabrizi is the author and co-founder of the New Worlder podcast.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: but I think caviar is definitely becoming kind of more popular and you're seeing it more around the place because you're getting species which are much cheaper that you know again people didn't ever bother with when there was only wild caviar nowadays you see in America I believe it's the most popular is Bayeri so Siberian some people call it Siberian the scientific name is Asipenser Bayeri
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: but the commercial name is Siberian that's probably the most farmed caviar in the world and then etc and yeah that's probably the reason it's being seen in a lot of places Beluga caviar the traditionally most expensive one is less seen around the world simply because it takes 20 years
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: but yeah that's kind of like a quick rundown explanation of why it's being seen in a lot more places Cyrus hi you were mentioning that it has intentionally labeled as a sophisticated product and you know in a way for marketing purposes and it doesn't mean that it's not you know very precious
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: uh product but how will you explain that at the same time it caught my attention when you say like actually some people eat it daily or you know it's more common so there is not that more daily assumption and and habit of relation with it at the same time it has been marketing like that but at the same time it is true that there is a product that it's of high quality
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: and then the ones that you were mentioning that are not so how do you navigate all those you know angles of the same product because you have made a whole life out of that so I mean I'm also we are also curious about your story too
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, during the times of wild caviar, that's kind of really pre-2010, so it's really, excuse me, not that long ago, all the caviar on the market was either from the Beluga species, the Osetra, or the Sevruga, and a bit, very little on the Bairi, Siberian
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: When farmed caviar became illegal and necessity and wild caviar became illegal, I think fully it became fully illegal in about 2012, 2013.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's when people started investing in species, farming species, which, you know,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: gave caviar in three to five years as opposed to 20 years for the beluga in the wild or let's say 15 years 12 years for the etc in the wild and therefore the people who kind of traditionally ate caviar you know usually typically the very wealthy are now a lot older than they actually were back then and uh as a result of farming um
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: One final point on Julia's point about kind of people having a lack of knowledge.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: it's because uh you know back when there was uh wild caviar only it was very well established and they're only kind of really three or four different caviars and it was it was the Soviet Union Russia and Iran which had
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: and Dominance on the entire industry and you couldn't no one else just produced it no one else caught it or so little it was negligible in the market and the caveat you got is just what you got and nowadays there's labeling there's you know living on the excuse me back of the tin
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: there's you know there's the internet which is increasing knowledge 20-30 years ago wasn't there you have to go to library to read about it or ask someone in person so that they're the kind of forces that are impacting it and there's also social media people like to be seen eating anything called caviar nowadays so it's really that that is creating I think the popularity around it
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: so now there's so much you know so much variety of caviar on the market in I mean is the generally is the quality good throughout well let's say a subjective question you know it's kind of like um someone uh asking you whether white wine is better or red wine yeah fair enough
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like sparkling water.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Some people like sparkling water which is drier or more kind of salinic, more salty.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's no right one answer but there are generally ones which have a more kind of you could say more sophisticated taste.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: So one thing you mentioned I wanted to ask about is that you said that farmed caviar
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: The time where the Sturgeon to lay the eggs is much shorter
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: How does that affect the quality at all?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: How do they make that possible?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of fascinating.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: What I was in fact trying to say, and I think I wasn't clear, was that the sturgeon species, of which there are a few number, five or six main ones that are being farmed, are the ones that lay eggs far quicker than
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: uh than the ones that people used to eat pre-2010 that were wild so by way of example um pre-2010 and up until i mean into the last like 100 years the beluga etc and sevruga were the most popular and the sevruga you know took about you know eight to ten years to actually give eggs in the wild and the beluga sometimes 25 18 to 25 years
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's a big investment.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've got a farm, you've got to pay for land, you've got to pay for water, you've got to pay for the fish as food, you've got to pay for the workers.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're looking for a quicker return.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Farming a species which takes you know a couple of years is obviously something that you where you get a dividend far quicker and that's what's being done and that's a lot cheaper too because by way of example I know there's a brand in the US Florida very big one called Markey's
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: um they uh farm beluga caviar and from what I've been told the price of their beluga caviar is nearly 40 000 US dollars a kilogram
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: now why yeah why why why would it be so valuable well one one obviously it's being farmed in the US where the costs are much higher than say Iran or Russia where belugas traditionally come from and kind of by comparison the price of beluga caviar from Iran that's in Europe now is probably max about 5 000 a kilogram
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: so in the US it's you know eight times about seven to eight times higher and that's because um land is a lot more expensive in the US workers are more expensive and it takes you know 20 years or so for it to uh
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: give eggs release eggs so a lot of people who are in the industry prefer not to go after the most expensive ones because you're going to be running at a loss for a very long time and a lot can happen in that time you know a natural a disaster or sometimes fish can get you know some kind of infection and infect everyone else near them
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: so they prefer to go something where it's kind of more of a guaranteed return and that kind of has the commercial impact of where you see caviar far more in restaurants and things like that because the most of the farming about 80 percent of it is based off kind of sturgeon species which give eggs in a couple of years and Iranian caviar cannot compete anywhere right in the U.S.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: yeah um up until Donald Trump was in power Iranian caviar actually was permitted in the US all species except beluga so even the Russians or Azerbaijanis Kazakhstanis couldn't bring in beluga but Iran did bring in
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: other species of Iranian caviar it's got an interesting history Iranian caviar is from the US but yeah you can't get it now unless you get a specific exemption from the US Treasury which we're kind of looking into getting obtaining but
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: yeah that's that's why it's unavailable in the US it can compete in Europe for sure it does compete um but in the market in Europe is very different to the US so before Trump there were no restrictions whatsoever on Iranian caviar
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: correct I mean they were kind of on and off throughout the years even since they started initially I believe when Reagan came to power he was the one who specifically sanctioned it prohibited it and then later he removed the sanctions of Iranian
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious if there is it like specific bands of like are these bands specific to caviar just because it's like a high-profile you know symbolic
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: export or is this kind of are these like wider bands that affect a lot of products um good question um nowadays the kind of uh laws that in place kind of prohibit anything that's primarily of or predominantly of Iranian origin um but before Trump they weren't it wasn't like that so apart from kind of their really
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you would think
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: do you think caviar would be somewhat uncontroversial yeah I don't know I mean uh yeah countries aren't necessarily kind of discussing caviar at the kind of political meetings yeah it's more oil and natural gas and things like that but yeah Trump decided to take a very harsh line you know banning even any even any Iranian carpets from being imported
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: interesting all right so all right so yeah my caviar history is pretty bad like I've just been like over the last few days trying to read up about it but I mean the origins of caviar are in
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: the Caspian Sea where you are farming correct correct yes okay and the you know Persians who you know modern day Iranians were the first to kind of cure the row is that also correct yes that's what uh that's what that's correct yeah okay thanks I just I need to run through this because honestly I I think a lot of people have the same questions I do and like they're just kind of blanket blank
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: blank on caviar history and where it comes from and it was kind of this area of the world uh Iran Caspian Sea astrakhan Turkey Ottoman Empire um I guess no one really knows um when it was kind of first uh in but uh we can only kind of uh speculate regarding uh you know such kind of historical facts
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: right right I like of course like somebody I'm sure somebody you know extracted sturgeon eggs you know five thousand years ago at some point but you know at least so from what from what I understand like up until the 12th century it was pretty affordable there was tons of you know sturgeon roe and you know sturgeons in the Caspian Sea and then
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: it just it just became the you know the story of overfishing and then became a delicacy and you know around the Caspian Sea and then that's kind of when this kind of this idea of caviar being this luxury ingredient began does that sound about right um yeah that's pretty much it I believe uh a lot of the Russian kind of kings and czars
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: they're the ones who valued caviar a great deal and they're the ones who brought kind of caviar culture to Europe by their relationships with other kind of royal families across Europe yeah they put a high price on caviar and it was
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: uh I think about after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 where a lot of actual kind of overfishing occurred on the kind of Russian side okay all right and yeah and and from there that's kind of what led to the banning of wild caviar
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: yeah that's right so after the fall I don't know how familiar you are with kind of Soviet history in the context of caviar after the fall of the Soviet Union the southern Russia became a kind of very lawless
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: the Iranian side was under strict control and always has been
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: That led to a lot of overfishing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think I've got some notes I've written one moment.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: I believe Iran was actually exempted from any kind of ban by CITES in 2006.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Other countries in the Caspian Sea were and because Iran was actually deemed to have very kind of sustainable caviar and that they were taking care of the environment.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: and Iran itself I think 2010 or 11 voluntarily joined the ban that the Caspian Sea countries put in place and which was then imposed by ascites the convention on international trade in endangered species
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: which is a treaty which is uh followed throughout the entire world there's no country that kind of really rejects it but the UN and uh other kind of international bodies always did commend Iran for their uh sustainable caviar production okay so Iran has always been kind of a leader in in sustainable caviar that's interesting to know and I where did that
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, historically, when did that begin?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: Any ideas of why?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: Iran being sustainable in caviar?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me, I think one reason is that laws around food in Iran in general now are currently very strict and they're not something you want to kind of evade.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: And second,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Apart from the north of Iran, caviar wasn't consumed by the general population.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't in the cuisine.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: So it was only around the Caspian Sea countries where it was in demand.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas in Russia, the entire country kind of still prefers, you know, eats caviar and they have salmon roe a lot.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: So in general, they're more aware of it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: The general population there was more aware.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, the population at the time
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was 140 million or so before the Soviet Union, Russia's population.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So just so much more money selling to the Russians.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, even during the time of the Soviet Union, Iran used to export a lot of the overwhelming majority of its beluga caviar to Russia, to the Soviet Union, I should say.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Even now.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Go on.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, go ahead.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: I said even now if you go on there the beluga caviar is still Iranian there whereas the etc is Russian and that's how it's kind of always been the Russians have been had better kind of etc in the wild and the Iranians had better beluga caviar so is does that is that still the case now that you know it's everything's being farm raised
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: yeah in general um Iran had kind of more know-how when it came to uh beluga caviar and kind of the species like uh etc and sevruga whereas a lot of the farms across the world decided to focus on the Siberian species and then the etc so uh in Iran um
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Cybrian kind of sturgeon farming is still relatively new they didn't focus on that they put most of their attention on the kind of more higher range products but I think now because they're seeing the market grow they're also focusing on you know other species or even hybrid species okay and crossbreeds yeah
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Cyrus it seems to be such a magical world and you know rich universe that as Nick was saying most people are not aware of and I saw a number on the information you you give in in the web page which by the way is very very complete and I think it tells of the careful work you do
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: uh and correct me if I am wrong but I saw that there are like 147 steps involved in the process and I'm so curious about that um I think it tells you know it's telling of the quality but can you tell us more about that uh sure I mean there are a lot of steps around excuse me uh from when the sturgeon is very young
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: and it's a baby all the way to kind of actual replenishing even the Caspian Sea we're still required via law under a declaration in Iran called the Ramsar Convention
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: which has been in place since 1971 to actually help replenish the stock of wild caviar in sorry wild sturgeon I should say in the Caspian Sea and we're not allowed to farm that or take that but just to help replenish it
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: but again back to the steps there are just so many I can tell you some of the general concepts we focus on which are kind of then broken down into the 147 steps and you know the first is the purity of the water we're probably one of the few farms in the world that are actually farming it in the Caspian Sea I believe there's another one
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: in Russia as well in Astrakhan that are farming it in the Caspian Sea you know the purity of the water makes a very big difference believe it or not because the species are being farmed for so long they need to be in a environment that they're kind of used to in a climate that they're used to and that's one of the reasons why you just simply don't see beluga being farmed outside of
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: uh it has been sea countries is because getting that climate right is very difficult um it's a lot easier when your sturgeon only have to be alive for three or four years but if you're going for 20 years you know that's like five times more six times more so you have to be a lot more careful I mean there's something also to be said about the native ecosystem you know the fish actually living in that
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: as opposed to, you know, just pulling them out and trying to replicate, you know, the water quality somewhere else.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm sure I'm sure that affects the taste and quality.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, it definitely does.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, one thing that happens is that a lot of people think of caviar simply as caviar and they distinguish between the different species when they're eating them with no idea what they're eating.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: um and different species have different tastes some have kind of a longer taste in your mouth generally the stuff that takes longer and is more expensive has a longer taste in your mouth where some caviar that's kind of very poorly farmed almost tastes like water or air right and unfortunately what happens there is where people have it the first time you know this is caviar what's this yeah this is a rip-off you know yeah um
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, is there something really important that
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: you guys in Iran do a little differently or I'd say take more care in yeah so so that we uh we farm it in its origins at present um we don't farm it outside of where it kind of historically has been um
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: and hence the taste is kind of more closest as can be legally possible to wild caviar that's really half the kind of game the complexity in sturgeon farming is where you actually farm it
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: how big the cages are that the sturgeon swim in obviously if the sturgeon are in a very small packed area and they're all hitting into each other most likely they're going to become a bit lazy not too lean over time and they produce they have a lot more fat in their body obviously and that impacts the caviar they produce as well the eggs
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: But that's probably the, come back to your question, that's probably the most important aspect is the environment it's farmed in and what it eats.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I know, for example, the sturgeon that are in our farm eat what's in the Caspian Sea, eat the fish that are there in that ecosphere.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: But when you're farming it somewhere else in the world,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the time antibiotics are added to the water, a lot of different fish, smaller fish they're fed have hormones in them to make them actually grow a lot faster so you can get a return on your investment faster and we can't do that under Iranian law because a lot of that is just outright illegal here.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I mean that's really it.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that answered your question.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: yeah I mean yeah I mean we can I'm sure we could be here all day you can tell us all of those 100 and something steps but um it will leave people curious about it which is the point right yeah but about um I guess Nick too uh Cyrus sound uh story with it uh we are very curious about that too like how did you start doing this and
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: yeah yeah yeah yeah I don't think I ever got that uh information when we had dinner how did you actually get involved in caviar business sure so I uh primarily handle uh kind of more branding side and the operations in outside of Iran I don't do too much with things in Iran my one business partner
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: uh does that and we both owned this brand um I got into it many years ago because I had a friend in Spain who would eat caviar a lot and would constantly ask me to get him some caviar in Spain to bring it from Iran and kept asking me the prices and I saw the prices in Iran and I compared
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: the prices uh to Europe and the same farmed caviar uh in a retail store in Iran is still 20 or 80 percent cheaper than what is in Europe oh wow this is uh it sounds like an interesting Market and second what I really liked was that uh
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's quite a heavy legal aspect to it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of regulation around Sturgeon Farming.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: I liked it because it brought a layer of complexity to the business because I actually used to be a lawyer many years ago.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I was at ease with all these terms and dealing with the regulation.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: and I thought hey you know this would be a great kind of business to invest in and so we started it and here we are now but that's that's really our story I saw a lot of a lack of transparency in the industry in general that's what I found interesting because it's such an expensive product but at the same time so few of the people who even
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: eat it know how to read the label on the caviar know about the different species and I think it's improving in general over time it has improved in the past few years but there's still a long way to go do you like now that there's so many other types of caviar yeah and like the world it's almost like the world's
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: A big percentage of the world is being introduced to it for the first time I mean what should they look for?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: What should they be looking for on the label?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well if they're looking purely on the label so kind of looking at it
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: as a kind of procedural formalistic way there is a label at the back of every caviar tin which is imposed via visites which every country the US, EU, Iran, Russia, China all follow
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: that has a that has the standard species code and it has what country it came from it has the year of harvest it even has the number of the processing plant the caviar was processed in that doesn't mean necessarily where it was farmed in sometimes it does sometimes it means where it was actually kind of you know cleaned and checked and had undertaken a health inspection
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: but that will tell you what species your caviar is so often what happens is that people buy a tin of caviar and the front might say you know XYZ species but the back will say ABC
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: and that's where a lot of the kind of deception at a consumer level occurs where the front and back say something else so to make it kind of clearer I was in Milan a while back in December and I just went into a shop gourmet shop and I asked them about their Iranian caviar what they had and he took out what he had and the front said you know
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Caspian Sea style caviar and he wrote caviar in Farsi in Persian as well using the Persian script so it's kind of giving an overall image that it was from Iran but when you turned over the tin and looked at the label the very boring looking label it said you know CN
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: the ISO country code for China so it came from China but it was being marketed as coming from Iran in the Caspian Sea now that's one thing that 90% of people just don't know about even ones eating caviar so we for example have a tool on our site which helps people
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: Cyrus Tabrizi
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: it was farmed in say Uruguay in the year 2018 and blah blah blah but that's probably the area where you know most people uh have little knowledge in and don't know how to make use of uh the law that exists to protect them okay so I'm looking at your website now and uh right on the caspianmonarch.com right at the top it says validate origin of your caviar and when you click on it
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: You type the brand name and then the CD's number and then it tells you everything.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: that's pretty cool yes not even your brand any brand right any brand yeah okay any brand I mean that label uh is on legally is required on every uh label of sturgeon caviar not salmon because I know some people call salmon roe caviar but that's required and when you look at that and that's something that I haven't really heard of being tampered with um because customs does check that okay
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: and that's when you can determine what your caviar is where it's from so no one can lie to you basically is like the things I've been reading is there has been a major increase in caviar farming in China yes and is it is any of it good quality or could you just assume it's not the best
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: no I don't think it's fair to assume it's all bad quality or whatever some of it is good quality it definitely is there's a lot of Chinese caviar being produced I believe the species they're most famous for is the Kaluga sturgeon which the Caspian Sea does not have is not native to the Caspian Sea and
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Don't think it's farmed in Iran.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think a few farms do farm it, but in general it's not farmed.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they have been doing a good job of kind of promoting caviar across the world.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: However,
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of people still don't know about the species or where the cavera is from because they all have a different taste so it really comes down to the individual it's kind of like saying you know someone likes sweeter wine someone likes it drier there's no wrong or right per se
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: But in that sense, even when it's so subjective taste-wise, how would you recommend those, you know, high-quality premium products for we eat and because there are things that I'm sure people shouldn't do just to not ruin all the process and then that flexibility comes where?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: What are the limits of that?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: sure well in general if you want to kind of uh know about the quality of caviar one thing a lot of people do think do falsely believe is that they can look at the color of the row and determine what species it is you in 90 of cases you can't because most of them have almost the almost the same color
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: so can even Siberian Biarrite all dark gray or black or kind of hazelnutty with a bit of gray so it's very difficult to on the eye simply to look at okay that's one way you you can't determine what caviar it is one other visual kind of aspect is when you look at caviar and it kind of looks like
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: um not raspberries um blackberries and not blackberries what are they saying uh uh what's the word um one second what fruit is it kind of looks all blueberries that's it I think it's blueberries where they're all stuck together the caviar have you seen that when um no that's not that's right it's not blueberries what if I've forgotten the word um
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: Black Currant, let me see.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, sometimes you see caviar and the row actually looks like it's stuck together.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a sign of bad quality.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's when it's been treated poorly.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: now there are kind of two visual aspects that you can look at but apart from it having a bad smell you actually do have to taste it to determine if it's good caviar or not one factor is the sharpness of taste
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: it shouldn't have a very sharp taste it should have a more softer uh nuanced taste and it shouldn't have any uh sourness to it at all i don't know if you've ever had caviar that tastes sour but it's pretty off-putting um caviar which for example pops in your mouth like literally like you have to pop
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was reading that actually in Southeast Asia they prefer the popping thing, right?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: They like that.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: In Japan they tend to
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: like the popping caviar a lot of time that can be a sign that the caviar is heavily pasteurized so it increases the lifespan of the product that's one way I mean if beluga caviar is like that it's bad if it's very chewy it pops if it's got a metallic taste to it because there is caviar which has a metallic taste to it that's another bad
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: sign a lot of time you can see kind of impurities in the caviar that's when you see kind of any residual of tissue or fat or a lump of unscrewed eggs in the caviar that's a sign of low quality um or if you see caviar where the row look damaged
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: so it doesn't kind of look like a sphere but rather kind of broken off and chipped off that's a sign that it's been treated poorly but if the color of the caviar in your tin is all different or kind of looks like gray than black gray than black again that's a sign of bad caviar because typically the process is to separate the different colors and because it impacts the taste
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: that's another sign let me think and the other sign is in general the taste in mouth how long it is the taste does change I can't articulate it very well but the moment you put in your mouth you'll feel that the taste changes and lingers over time caviar which is of a lower quality will kind of just stay a very short time in your mouth and then it's kind of done and over with
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: And ideally it should be eaten at 50-55 F degrees, right?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Ideally just a kind of room temperature.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: There isn't a set science to it.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is a good question you ask.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean yeah there's a lot of manufactured kind of myths that it should be you know uh you know 22.8 celsius degrees and the moon should be out when you eat it but no as long as it's not excessively hot or excessively cold it's fine to eat it um at any temperature okay so like even chefs that are you know putting it
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: on a warm dish.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's fine, just not too hot.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: Depends.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: I've had some dishes with sturgeon caviar where they put it on, say, steak, which has been too hot, or it's been on fish that's too hot, and it's kind of melted maybe deliberately into the fish, but putting it... It melts in general, so...
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: you shouldn't put it on a very hot food for too long but again you can put it out you know in open air for a while it's not going to expire or go off um that fast contrary to what people think but if you put it out of the fridge for like three days yeah there's gonna be something wrong with it um but waiting a couple of hours or something or nothing's gonna happen off a day
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: and is there a use you have seen when you travel that it surprised you because of how different like you will never uh think that it should work that way that it that it actually tastes well and that has been new for you or or not to be honest I never understood um the Russians with it having caviar with vodka
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: because vodka has such an intense, blunt taste to it and caviar is like the opposite.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I never got it.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's like as if they were trying to wash down the caviar with the vodka.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's what is always surprising when people want to have it with some alcohol.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think the taste of alcohol can be pretty strong a lot of the time.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like burning it, literally.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: so I think it's best off actually on its own to be appreciated contrary to how what everyone else says I think it's better off eating by itself I wonder if the Russian you know this custom of drinking vodka with it it began with very low quality caviar or
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: or something like that and in its origins where it was I don't know and then the alcohol was to you know kill yeah something I don't know who knows who knows I mean they're still they farm a lot of caviar still but they don't export it they don't export much of it so I think they might even be producing farming more than
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: the Chinese now but almost none of it gets exported and the quality control there in terms of legal control is a bit less than other countries so they have very differing qualities of caviar
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: but on your point for the consumer it's really important for them to know what breed of sturgeon it came from as opposed to simply calling it caviar and if you if the country of farming is important you also see that on the back of the label and
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: in general the taste the taste in your mouth and it's more about kind of negation that's about avoiding certain things bluntness any sourness any metallic taste any poppiness that would be good caviar do you have a preferred
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's how I like to eat it.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Some people like to eat it with crackers or bread.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: I like to eat it by itself simply because I like to appreciate the taste because it's got a complex taste.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if I have it with something else, you know,
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen people yeah have it with alcohol with bread or something very salty kind of mixes uh the two and I don't like it I've had it with different fish in fact actually it was salmon I'm not selling robot salmon and blue caviar but I personally have never enjoyed that
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: but it's also very very nutritious and I was wondering if there is a difference if you know there have been uh uh studies about it like the difference in terms of the nutritional value of a high quality caviar and the other ones because it's I mean I like if you can tell us more about all the things that it has that are good for your body sure yeah in general good question um I should have
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: raised that to you earlier a caviar which is even eating caviar is kind of gives you a buzz if you have the good quality and if you have an empty stomach you probably wouldn't need to eat
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: excuse me for the you know at least half a day even having 50 grams of beluga caviar obviously not many people are going to replace their morning coffee or their Red Bull with beluga caviar but if you want you're more than welcome to do so but caviar in general has a lot of protein I believe
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: and a lot of zinc inside it potassium and in general the higher quality caviar has a higher quantity of those in them
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: B12 I read too like a spoon has all the B12 you need for the day yeah yeah I mean um we we tried that's it's interesting you bring it up because we tried to focus on that in our branding and marketing um earlier on but we found it very ineffective no one was really interested in the nutritious um
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: Elements of Caviar and I was actually told that by a kind of very high profile luxury retail store in Europe that customers don't care about that so don't emphasize it consumers are the worst aren't they anything good of anything it's like they just they want to see what they want to see that's very telling right
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_02: yeah I mean a lot of it now is simply being seen to be eating heavier that's what's most important and that's it's like that with a lot of high-end food Wagyu steak or truffles people just want to say that they're eating it or they want it seen on the menu without actually kind of appreciating it their whole thing
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: yeah but I would like you know restaurants that use caviar to to specify where it's from more because I I'm trying to think and it's like I rarely see anything about where it's from maybe ever like you know maybe maybe the species will appear every once in a while if it you know it might say it's El Cetra or Beluga but
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_03: yeah I hardly ever see any info on it
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: yeah unfortunately uh because of the price of caviar um because of the mystery that surrounds it uh in our dealings with chefs they a lot of them just simply don't know about they need educating uh on caviar they have no idea themselves so it's difficult for them to then you know when they've got no knowledge to kind of educate their own um
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: customers yeah I think now because of the internet and because of in general a focus on sustainability and authenticity and transparency people are becoming aware but there's just a long way to go all the information's out there on the internet if you want to know about where your caviar came from but people still don't do it no but I think
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: they will I mean I think now that caviar is much more it's more around I mean at least in my world you know and in the Americas I you know even in Latin America it's there's somebody pushing caviar on every high-end restaurant you know around and it is appearing on menus more and more and
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: but yeah nobody really understands where it's from but at some point somebody's gonna have to start talking about yeah this is the good stuff and this is why you know this is what you're paying for yeah what we found in kind of our sales and our dealings with you know hotels or private clients is that
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: Nearly everyone prefers the Beluga from us.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: Over 80% of our sales are with the Beluga.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: They're not very interested in the other species, but I'm not sure whether they are preferring the Beluga simply because of the price it's at, or because it's known as the most expensive, or because they actually enjoy the taste.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: that's something uh we still don't know yet and it's not very easy to find ascertain information regarding you know the answer so how how many different varieties do you have we have well technically we have four so one is we have the beluga we have the etc
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: we have the Sivruga and we have the Siberian slash Bayeri we also have Almas caviar which some people think is a different breed of caviar it's not it's simply Beluga sturgeon that's so old that the fish actually starts releasing kind of golden colored eggs okay doesn't it's got no actual difference between the taste
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: uh it's only sometimes the eggs are actually a bit larger than the regular so the regular beluga is about 3.2 millimeters between 3.2 and 3.8 approximately and the almas is bigger than that and golden colored so but four kind of uh technically legally and we've got one more kind of commercially okay five
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: yeah I'm looking at the almost on your on your website and it's yeah it's bright gold it's beautiful super cool there are some apart from the restrictions in the US there are some challenges in terms of regulations or bans that you are facing right now or how easy is to get it across different countries and commercialize it
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: um in general there are no issues with uh commercializing it or exporting it because everyone is following one set of laws worldwide apart from you know the US on allowing the importation of beluga caviar
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: but we're all under this kind of same set of regulations no one's got anything different only that when we say bring it into Europe we have to pay an additional import duty which obviously makes our product a bit more expensive than someone who's produced it locally in Germany or in Italy farmed it there okay so how much is like
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_03: How much does that raise the price?
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_03: What's the difference in price, I guess?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting because most of our farming is on kind of beluga caviar.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: And in Europe, it's not on beluga caviar.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's starting to be farmed, but it's not something that's really seen there.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: The caviar Ossetra is very big in Europe and Siberian.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: but Iran has traditionally been known for producing uh you know the best beluga and that's also known as the best caviar in the world so we kind of don't compete we're kind of uh in that sense but things things will obviously change in the future and for example in Italy they're now starting to they're farming and they're selling uh beluga caviar um
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: and we are also you know farming more Siberian Bayeri caviar because we've seen that as
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: uh kind of commercially uh more instance it's kind of more strategic because once you uh get people eating biary or Siberian which is a lot cheaper you can also then introduce them to beluga caviar other species rather than trying to sell people this very expensive uh you know these very expensive caviar right from the get-go right yeah it's like the gateway caviar exactly yeah yeah
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: yeah I mean this is so fascinating I could ask you questions all day about this one one I think one issue when speaking about caviar is that you know uh there's so much has gone on in the past 10 to 15 years with even just caviar wild caviar being illegal so that led to you know farmed
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: Cyrus Tabrizi
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: The Neuron and because of that and because of online sales people are buying online it's just led to so many more brands and you know there's people people have a different uh kind of they're different preconceptions you know someone's saying what temperature should I eat it at you know what room temperature it's like you know it's not gonna nothing's gonna happen you know don't worry you know and I think that need that kind of um
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_02: is creating a lot of confusion making people nervous around caviar but hence it's also somewhat it's it's so kind of it's almost like illogical when I'm explaining it because there's so many different competing forces yeah around it um I for example I've been told uh when we did uh market research other sellers were telling people that no Iranian caviar was banned
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: it's illegal worldwide you'll be sanctioned you know you can be sent off to Uncle Sam and you know you go to jail for 20 30 years and hold on you know you know we're clearing it uh in customs in Europe and you're telling me it's illegal it's banned yeah but there's just so much kind there's so many competing forces and because it's not very transparent it's not like it's not an everyday kind of good it's more of a niche
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you think the laws will change back anytime soon in the US?
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think probably or uranium caviar would be allowed in.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: The luga sturgeon I think no because the US was actually discussing a proposal I believe last year to even further ban other species which was going to impact a lot of European sellers.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay why would they do that?
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it came down to very kind of skillful lobbying by domestic players in the US and they didn't want competition really because producing in the US again is quite expensive and if you're producing somewhere else in a developing country your cost is so much lower that a domestic producer in the US is not going to be able to compete.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that I don't think that ban will go into place because you know the European funds were very uh
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: Cyrus Tabrizi
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: misconstrued or how people are misled consumers are misled in the industry and as part of the EU's farm to fork strategy or farm to table strategy they're really trying to bring in kind of some kind of blockchain for a lot of food a lot of seafood so you're aware of every kind of step in the supply chain
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: I know where it's been you know if it's you know American shrimp is it just processed there and what is it actually it was actually caught was it going Thailand or Indonesia you know a lot of a lot of that kind of stuff that people take for granted because you know if you're if you're buying shrimp a regular guy says oh you know American shrimp okay it's American but maybe that only means it's processed in America but it's actually caught in
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think blockchain in particular will be extremely important in the future.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_03: Are you already seeing it being implemented anywhere?
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_02: Cyrus Tabrizi
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: you can't see it on the back of the label but what we have the information we have to give to CITES so every fish that's actually killed has a particular name and a number a chipset number and the tins it actually goes into so if one fish for example gave 10 kilograms of roe and that went into 20 tins
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: they track every tin it went to as well so so for example one method people when the legal method that people would use was they'd get one CITES label and or one label of caviar
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: and then they'd um let's say they have that 10 kilograms of beluga and then they get say 200 tins of a kilogram and then mix it with cheaper quality caviar using the same label okay but then uh the Iranian law actually used to quiet was copied because Iran used to require you to uh
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Mark what precise tin it went into and each tin had an individual code and that's that now is reported back to CITES in Switzerland so if they ever see a tin of caviar they can look back and go hold on this was you know imported into the US it says why is it now in Germany
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_03: so clearly something's going on in the labels being used twice something like that so that's kind of like a blockchain but obviously it's not as effective as kind of a purely digital one right right now it would i think eventually those things will have to happen right like you'll be able to scan the you know put the code in and you'll see all those steps the consumer will not just uh
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: yes I know there's a company I believe they're called in the UK called provenance and they focus on kind of blockchain in the food industry and they're growing quite a bit and people are showing interest
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_03: and what they do is pretty cool encouraging transparency in the industry especially seafood because there are so many different players involved that it's almost impossible to figure out it's a mess and there's so much fraud in seafood especially what we get in the US it's like the labels are so bad sometimes if you just go to the general supermarket and it'll say like
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Farmed in Mexico, Thailand or Vietnam like it's just a mess it's like you really have no idea where anything's coming from yeah yeah yeah yeah and um going to uh restaurants in the U.S.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_02: do you find uh it kind of be more transparent than Europe or into for caviar uh for caviar I don't
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_03: maybe it's hard to say um there's probably a few places here and there they're like very high-end French restaurants that are very transparent about you know this caviar supplement that you're getting and what it is and where it's from but then everywhere else you know it's just become this
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_03: you know this gimmick where all caviar is the same and it's you know just the thing you you know you can order it with you know your fried chicken you know suddenly and but it's like yeah that's where it becomes the transparency is gone it's like it it could be anything right right
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if over time can symbolize more all these you are telling us of an example of sustainability and transparency and traceability instead of luxury good for the sake of it.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I guess that's part of the goal, right?
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I mean, I think if like blockchain is going to be really implemented, it's going to start with a very high
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know you know a very expensive product one that's already has kind of the the foundation of transparency right but not because it's uh uh as as Cyrus was saying to be seen eating caviar is more like what it means why it's uh what does it mean that it's a luxury good in terms of all these
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it depends on a few terms when we're speaking with managers of retail, luxury retail outlets in Europe and the UK.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_02: They
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: talked about some very high profile soccer football players who buy their caviar and they say these guys don't ever look at the tin or anything they just go what's that what's the price give me the most expensive one that's it give me three kilograms of that and that's how a lot of buyers of you know truffles and Wagyu steak are really like or what's deemed as being truffles or Wagyu steak and it's very hard to fight that um
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_03: because the academics are interested in you know transparency and sustainability and all but they're unfortunately not the buyers of Javier yeah but I don't know I think everything takes time and and hopefully you know it's at least on a pathway to changing and to being you know more transparent and people actually caring
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think people do generally care, you know, where the fruit is coming from more than they used to.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, a lot more.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, things, just information is so accessible nowadays.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So you can just Google a brand and you see, you know, where they're from.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't available 20 or 30 years ago.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, do you have any other questions?
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I'm just...
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, is there anything else you'd like to say?
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean I've said a lot and I've said in a very convoluted manner.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_02: I do apologize.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how to organize this industry in a kind of
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_03: more disciplined manner it just lacks discipline you know yeah I mean I think that's the entire culinary industry it's it's kind of messy you know and it's it just takes people making sense and you know talking reasonable to uh I don't know to make people aware so so thank you I think you're doing a good job from what I can tell and like I from what I had of your caviar it was
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_03: it's quite lovely in in Italy a couple of dinners and uh and yeah it's like it's it's a big world to learn I wish I had more money to spend on caviar than I than I currently do but but but every once in a while having a little bit of it is is quite nice and it's uh I do appreciate the product and the the history behind it and
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_03: in actually tasting really good stuff.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's quite the experience.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for coming on and helping me, probably more than anyone, just understand this massively complex industry.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_03: oh my pleasure glad to speak to you both thanks Nick and Juliana thank you everyone for listening I hope you enjoyed that interview with Cyrus Tabrizi the founder of Caspian Monarch Caviar if you haven't subscribed to our newsletter on Substack just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack or just google it it'll come up
• 1:18:13
  SPEAKER_03: and a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music to the show.
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Find out more about Pat at patbuzzard.com