Sturia

Sturia is the caviar brand of SCEA STURGEON, a French farming and processing business within the Kaviar group. Its documented production network combines freshwater farms in south-western France, hatchery operations at Le Douhet and caviar processing at Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge; the brand offers baerii, osciètre and beluga caviar.

Sturia at a glance

Who owns Sturia?

The company behind the brand is not simply “Sturia France”. The French public business directory records SCEA STURGEON as an active société civile d’exploitation agricole, an agricultural civil company, created on 12 June 1995 and registered at Saintes. Its registered headquarters is the Carillon fish farm at Saint-Fort-sur-Gironde, rather than the Gironde address commonly given for commercial correspondence.

The parent’s exact registered name is SOCIETE KAVIAR, a French SAS, or simplified joint-stock company, based at 102 route de Beauval in Saint-Sulpice-et-Cameyrac. Its filed accounts for the year ended 30 June 2023 list a 100% holding in SCEA STURGEON. Sturia’s current company presentation still identifies Sturgeon as belonging to the Kaviar group, checked in November 2026.

This distinction matters when comparing caviar houses and producers: the brand, the farm operator and the holding company are different identities. A company number establishes the business; it does not establish the species or provenance of any particular tin.

The dates behind the name

Sturia’s history has more than one starting point. A published interview with Kaviar’s director, Laurent Dulau, traces the venture to Jean and Claudia Boucher and Allan Jones in 1986. The public registry dates both present companies to 1995, while Sturgeon’s environmental application describes the group’s sale to the LAC family office in 2011.

Those dates describe an earlier enterprise, the creation of the current legal entities and a later ownership transfer, not three competing incorporation dates. For the wider regional story, see French caviar; Sturia’s own chronology should not be used as a substitute for the history of the whole industry.

Where the farms and workshop are

The most useful distinction is between sites that rear fish and the site that makes and packs caviar. Sturgeon’s July 2023 application maps its farms, the former Guyenne hatchery and a processing workshop. The establishment records retrieved in November 2026 list the following locations as active; that is administrative status, not a report of daily production.

Saint-Sulpice-et-Cameyrac is also an active administrative location, but it should not be counted as another fish farm. The hatchery was historically identified as the separate group company Écloserie de Guyenne; a Sturgeon establishment was registered at its address on 15 July 2026.

For water systems, the evidence is site-specific. The 2023 application proposes a groundwater-fed holding and rinsing basin at Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge, supplied from the Lower Cenomanian aquifer and discharging towards the Laignes stream. That describes a proposed workshop installation, not the systems used at the farms. According to the 2023 application, farms use river water, with groundwater recirculation at Souméras.

Which sturgeon does Sturia use?

According to Sturia, its product range covers three species. Its Baerii products identify Siberian sturgeon, Acipenser baerii; its Oscietra products identify Russian sturgeon, Acipenser gueldenstaedtii; and its Beluga is identified as Huso huso. The Sturgeon Specialist Group and World Sturgeon Conservation Society proposed the name Acipenser huso in 2025. These are species identities, whereas Classic, Prestige and Grand Cru are product or selection names, not additional species or legal grades.

For a connoisseur, the useful comparison starts with species and then asks how the producer has selected and matured that batch. Classic Baerii and Classic Oscietre do not become the same caviar because they share a range name. Equally, Oscietra Grand Cru remains a selection within the osciètre offering rather than a fourth fish.

Sturia explicitly describes its beluga as coming from its own production, and its farm network supports its identity as a producer rather than merely a repacker.

The Siberian sturgeon guide explains the species behind the baerii range. Here, the narrower question is whether a named Sturia product identifies its fish clearly, rather than whether all roe sold under a familiar trade word necessarily has the same origin.

Sturia and the Caviar d’Aquitaine PGI

Sturgeon participates in the producer association behind Caviar d’Aquitaine, and Sturia lists a product specifically bearing that PGI name. A PGI, or protected geographical indication, protects a registered product name and its specification; it is not private ownership of the regional name by Kaviar or any other member.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/342, dated 13 February 2025 and published on 18 February 2025, registered the name. The applicable EU geographical-indications framework is Regulation (EU) 2024/1143. The published single document restricts the product to unovulated eggs of Acipenser baerii baerii, meaning eggs collected before ovulation, and requires the production stages to take place within the defined geographical area.

The practical consequence is precise: Sturia’s osciètre and beluga cannot qualify under this specification, even if they are farmed in the region. The PGI permits fresh, pasteurised or frozen product, so the protected name alone does not tell you its preservation treatment. Ovulated eggs are outside this specification; broader processing standards should not be substituted for its particular rules.

Read Caviar d’Aquitaine (PGI) for the geographical boundary and full specification. For this house profile, the relevant distinction is between Sturia’s participation as a producer and the eligibility of an individual product to carry the protected name.

What Sturia is known for

According to Sturia, its activities combine farming, processing and selection. The producer association describes eggs being sorted, sieved by hand, washed, salted and packed. The company also presents itself as a sélectionneur-affineur: a selector and maturer of caviar, working with lots after harvest rather than treating every batch as interchangeable.

The producer association describes eggs being sorted, sieved by hand, washed, salted and packed.

That makes species, selection and maturation more useful reference points than an unsupported claim to be France’s first or largest producer. Sturia describes itself as a selector and maturer of caviar; its range names identify commercial selections.

Reading origin and processing on a Sturia label

The public CITES register lists STURGEON SCEA at 1 chemin du Poteau, Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge, under FR 17 331 003 R/T, marked for exporting and processing/repackaging. This is a facility entry, not a registration of every farm or every Sturia product. The separate food-establishment approval list also identifies the processing address.

A CITES label identifies the species and source of the roe and records its country of origin alongside processing or repacking information. On repacked caviar, keep the original country of origin separate from the repacker’s details. The French administrative address does not, by itself, establish where the fish was raised. Likewise, a CITES traceability label is not laboratory proof of the contents, nor does it certify flavour, freshness or entitlement to use the PGI.

For a useful documentary check, compare the named species, roe origin, processing establishment and any PGI claim, then ask for clarification if they do not align. How to check a producer on the CITES register explains the register’s role without confusing plant registration with farm ownership. An absent farm entry should not automatically be read as an unlawful business.

In France and the rest of the EU, Regulation (EC) No 865/2006 implements the CITES caviar labelling system. US caviar trade follows 50 CFR 23.71; nonbinding FDA CPG 540.150 recommends equally prominent fish names and added colour declarations. Great Britain and Northern Ireland have different applicable food law, so the rules for the destination must be checked separately.