CRUELTY FREE, ANIMAL FREE CAVIAR
Cell-Cultured Cell-ag Caviar, Recombinant Caviar Polypeptides for cosmeceutical usage.
The Sturgeon species (Acipenseriformes) has evolved over the last >300 million years. However insatiable human demand for the sturgeons prized eggs has nearly caused an entire extinction of this 'living fossil' species. Since 1998, CITES has ensured that the international trade of 'Caviar' does not threaten the Acipenseriformes survival, and therefore all wild sturgeon caviar has been banned since 2005, which has led to new Caviar Farms setting up across the globe, with China now producing more Caviar than the rest of the world combined.
Whilst the era of global Caviar Farming has stemmed the collapse of wild sturgeon, pre the killing of the sturgeon fish to harvest its roe, each fish is subjected to an extreme prolonged period of starvation (during the 'purging process'). Each caviar fish unfortunately experiences unnatural cruelty purely for the fish to lose the 'muddy taste' of its roe (Caviar). Sturgeon fish are natural bottom feeders in the wild, and freely roam back to the brackish water estuary's to spawn; however due to the imitation of this spawning ground in cramped cold water tank, the sturgeon fish would be forced to eat its own excrement, and therefore by starving the fish in cold fresh water, the muddy taste is removed due to non feeding. This cruel practice is conducted by all of the worlds caviar farms.
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Sadly, demand continues to grow for farmed Caviar, with the global Caviar market now worth over $1bn per year. However the largest demand for 'Caviar' is not in food, but it is in Cosmetics, and the use of the cosmetic ingredient 'Caviar Extract'. In the last 10 years The $210bn cosmetics industry has been reforming as consumers demand animal free cosmetic products, and in March 2021, Caviar Biotec announced a global collaboration of leading Sturgeon Biologists, Biochemical and Biosynthesis Engineers, and 'Cellviar' was born.