Already number one in French caviar, the Caviar House & Prunier group now wants to compete with the world's largest producers. To do this, it has just absorbed the Caviar de Neuvic company in a securities exchange operation.

 

With this merger, the Dordogne department strengthens its status as a stronghold of French caviar. It was in the village of Neuvic that Laurent Deverlanges set up his eponymous company in 2011. And it was in Montpon-Ménestérol that Estudor was born, one of the first sturgeon farms in the world in the early 1990s - after their fishing in French waterways was banned in 1982. Once bankrupt, this fish farm was saved by Pierre Berger in 1998, who then bought the Parisian restaurant Prunier, a mecca for tasting caviar, oysters and champagne since 1872. Prunier was already producing caviar - wild - in France in the 1920s, an activity introduced by Russian emigrants to the Gironde and Dordogne populated by sturgeons.

 

Since 2021, the Caviar House & Prunier group, including Balik smoked salmon and a network of 40 stores in Europe and Asia, has been 80% owned by the Swiss fund Olma Luxury Holdings. This international player in fine gastronomy has revenues of 43 million euros. De Neuvic, the only producer of certified organic caviar in France, employs 60 people for 10 million euros in turnover. Its main farm covers thirty hectares of ponds and is home to 150,000 female sturgeons, with its own hatchery.

 

Five independent breeders

 

The two producers united under the Groupe Prunier banner operate five farms in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie with a harvest capacity of 25 tonnes: more than half of the national production of precious little black eggs. Both brands will continue to exist. With 43 tonnes, France, which was recently following Italy, now ranks fourth behind China and Russia. “Production is increasing but less quickly than in the rest of the world,” explains Laurent Deverlanges, who also sees Poland soon overtaking France. “Chinese companies have not yet taken over foreign markets. Particularly in the United States where consumption is growing rapidly, from 50 to 100 tonnes in ten years,” underlines the new operations director.

 

Groupe Prunier wants to “meet the challenge of globalization”. This involves the extension of Prunier Manufacture in Gers and the conversion of carp ponds in Tarn-et-Garonne for Neuvic. And “probably external growth” while there remain five independent breeding farms in France.

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