World Radio Switzerland

Sturgeon caviar is a delicacy from the Caspian Sea, but if Samuel Moser has his way, people will be talking about Swiss caviar.

Moser is the CEO of the Tropenhaus project that will, among other things, harvest caviar in the Swiss Alps. So is he serious?

Switzerland’s Samuel Moser holds one of his young sturgeon that will eventually produce caviar. (Alex Helmick, WRS)

SAMUEL MOSER: Yes we are. I will show you in our fish which we have imported from Germany. They are seven years old. They have to reach the age of maturity and we have slaughtered some of them and we know that it works. We have put our facilities properly according to hygienic standards, and we can produce caviar as soon as these fish are ready for us.

And the conditions for raising the fish just may be perfect. When the Swiss created the world’s longest land tunnel, Loetschberg, they also interrupted the flow of water that seeps through the rock in the mountains.

That water had to be collected and then cooled before it could be put into the local rivers or it could have destroyed the balance in the ecosystem.

“We can produce caviar as soon as these fish are ready for us.”

Peter Hoffschmidt was the chief architect on the Loetschberg tunnel and had an idea for all that warm water.

PETER HOFFSCHMIDT: Because I am a fisherman, I created this idea of why not use this water to produce something valuable and that’s how it started. And then during my career, I was also working in Russia. I got to know the sturgeon and the caviar, so this brought me to the idea to look into the possibility of using the sturgeon.

The warm water is collected in a tank, then funneled off to one of Moser’s pools where the sturgeon swim.

MOSER: It is 20 degrees. It is perfect for our fish. It is clean. We don’t need to filter it at all. And it comes all 24 hours a day around the clock and that means we have a very valuable source. The base, the raw material for our agricultural system.

Samuel Moser’s sturgeon swim in pools in the middle of the Swiss Alps. The pools use warm mountain water diverted from Loetschberg Base Tunnel. Eventually, the sturgeon will produce tons of caviar. (Alex Helmick, WRS)

Moser says the fish grow faster because of the warm water.

MOSER: The Siberian sturgeon is living originally in Siberia. That means a very continental climate where summers are very hot and winters are extremely cold. So this fish is used to growing very fast over four or five months within summer time, where as in winter it stays almost at the same level. And what we do is nothing else but to provide summer feelings and conditions for that fish all year round.

It will take about five years before the estimated 2-to-3 tons of caviar a year is being produced and spread around the world.

But grocery giant Coop is already on board. They’ll be the exclusive distributor in Switzerland.

The farm will also produce an estimated 40-to-50 tons of sturgeon meat as well. Coop will distribute that too. 

All of this will be based in the tiny town of Frutigen, with just 6,500 people. It’s about 50 kilometers south of Bern, and it will all be a part of a bigger Tropenhaus project, which could bring tens of thousands of tourists to the region.

Moser and company will build a 30 million franc facility that will also grow exotic fruits like bananas, mangos, papayas without any herbicides. It will also use geothermal and hydroelectric energy all fueled from that warm mountain water. 

So instead of having to cool the water artificially, the Tropenhaus will use it to its advantage and harvest a delicacy—a 2,000 franc per kilo delicacy.

Alex Helmick, World Radio Switzerland in Frutigen, just south of Bern.