Kaviari

Kaviari is a Paris caviar house that describes selecting farmed caviar, overseeing its maturation and packing it for chefs, distributors and private customers. It says it sources from partner farms; the roe’s origin depends on the selection and batch, not the Paris address.

Kaviari at a glance

Who owns Kaviari?

The operating business and the people associated with the brand are not interchangeable. KAVIARI is the French trading company; KAVIARI INVESTMENTS is the holding vehicle whose filed articles explicitly provide for holding shares in that company.

In March 2026, an investor consortium led by idiCo, alongside Bpifrance, UI Investissement and IRD, joined a management buyout. The transaction announcement says the management team centred on Raphaël Bouchez and Karin Nebot retained the majority of the capital; this was not a complete sale to idiCo.

Public corporate announcements also record KAVIARI INVESTMENTS replacing Bouchez as the operating company’s president in March 2026. That corporate office is distinct from beneficial ownership. According to idiCo’s March 2026 announcement, management retained a majority stake.

A company date and a family history

Kaviari’s own chronology dates its foundation to 2001 and credits Raphaël Bouchez, supported by Jacques Nebot. Its earlier dates describe the family’s experience: Nebot’s encounter with Iranian wild caviar in 1975, followed by his creation of Astara in 1981. Astara belongs to that background, not to an earlier founding date for Kaviari.

The French government’s business directory gives 1 January 1979 as the creation date of the present operating legal entity. These records answer different questions: the age of the legal vehicle is not necessarily the launch date of the house under its current name. Accordingly, the company’s fiftieth-anniversary storytelling in 2025 should be read as heritage rather than evidence that Kaviari was founded in 1975.

Where the work happens

The distinction between a registered office, a working laboratory and a public-facing venue matters here. Sources checked in November 2026 support the following French locations and roles:

The house dates the move to larger Ivry premises to 2016 and the conversion of its former laboratories into La Manufacture to 2017. An older Paris address remaining in the CITES register therefore does not, by itself, establish that routine packing still takes place there.

Kaviari’s chronology also reports Hong Kong and New York offices opening in 2015.

Selection and maturation, in Kaviari’s account

Kaviari says it works with partner farms, helps direct caviar production with the farmers, and matures the caviar in its own laboratories. This describes a house involved in sourcing and finishing an agricultural product, rather than a vertically integrated sturgeon farm.

On its savoir-faire page, the company names Bruno Higos as the person following the development of individual lots in cold storage, using observation, smell and tasting. Its caviar range page also names his son Valentin.

According to Kaviari, Bruno Higos monitors individual lots during maturation in cold storage. For the process itself, see caviar maturation; for the commercial roles, see farmers, processors and brands.

Where Kaviari’s caviar comes from

The following are Kaviari’s own published identifications, checked in November 2026. They establish declared countries for named selections, not a complete supplier register or a guarantee that every origin is available in every batch.

Osciètre is a trade name used here for Russian sturgeon, Acipenser gueldenstaedtii; Prestige and Gold are house selections, not separate species. According to Kaviari, Dauricus is kaluga, Huso dauricus, and Kristal is Acipenser schrenckii × Huso dauricus. Scientific names here follow CITES nomenclature. Brownstein and Near proposed Sinosturio dauricus in 2025; the IUCN Sturgeon Specialist Group and World Sturgeon Conservation Society instead supported Acipenser dauricus on 22 October 2025.

Kaviari’s current Beluga Impérial specification identifies Huso huso; its July 2025 catalogue says farming countries vary with season and availability. A Chinese origin or a named lake is not, on its own, identification of the farm operator.

What Kaviari is known for

Its documented identity is that of a selector and maturer supplying restaurant kitchens, with a consumer-facing side built around the Paris Delikatessens and La Manufacture. According to the transaction participants, chefs, restaurateurs and specialist distributors are its principal clientele.

Kristal is a useful example of its house identity, but sensory claims remain attributable: Kaviari describes firm grains ranging towards gold and a finish recalling fresh almond. Other caviar houses and producers organise the relationship between farming, finishing and branding differently.

Reading origin and repacking on a Kaviari tin

A Paris brand address identifies the business, not where the fish was raised. In the CITES system, a repacked container keeps the country of origin as a separate field from the repacking plant’s identification, so French repacking does not turn Chinese roe into French-farmed caviar.

The public CITES register lists both KAVIARI addresses under its combined processing/repackaging heading, with codes ending in R. According to the CITES register, both entries have repackaging codes ending in R; registration does not establish ownership of supplying farms. A CITES label supports traceability but does not independently prove the contents of a tin.

Separate rules apply in Switzerland, the UAE, China, Japan, Russia and Australia. According to CITES, personal effects exemptions are conditional; wildlife trade labels alone do not establish food import eligibility.

A Paris brand address identifies the business, not where the fish was raised.

To check an individual lot, request the complete label and match the plant details against the register. Use the CITES producer check for that task, and mother tins and repacked tins for the packaging distinction; neither a brand name nor a French address answers both questions.