Every couple of weeks, Justin Henry receives a call from someone in Russia inquiring about sturgeon or caviar produced here on the Sunshine Coast. The irony is not lost on Henry, general manager of Sechelt-based Northern Divine, Canada’s only producer of farmed white sturgeon.

“Here’s someone calling us from the home of sturgeon meat and caviar,” says Henry. “Yes, it’s a little ironic.”

Such is the age-old demand and global appreciation for non-fertilized sturgeon roe – otherwise known as true caviar. Until 1991, much of the world’s supply came from the Caspian Sea. The breakup of the Soviet Union that year meant that five countries now bordered the inland ocean – none of them equipped to deal with overfishing, which has since exhausted sturgeon fisheries there.

Those events so far away have had a profound effect on Target Marine Hatcheries in Porpoise Bay. Once better known for producing Coho salmon smolts, Target Marine is where Northern Divine has spent the last 12 years investing in the science of farmed sturgeon and eco-friendly caviar.

The first sturgeon meat went to market in 2002 and last year, that investment bore fruit with the first few kilograms of caviar…..

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