Caviar production to increase as Sturgeon Valley begins expansion

By Chen Si, Yichang Three Gorges International Communication Studio

The second phase of Qingjiang Sturgeon Valley recently began construction and is expected to boost caviar production capacity by five times when put into operation at the end of this year.

Located in Tianpingshan Village, Gaobaizhou Town, the expansion covers various fields, such as processing, sales, packaging, logistics, cold chain, catering and tourism. This  is expected to help further develop a sturgeon industrial chain in the town.

Upon completion, it is expected to be capable of processing 3,000 tonnes of sturgeon and producing more than 300 tonnes of caviar annually.

"The second phase of Qingjiang Sturgeon Valley is very important for our future development. Compared to the previous caviar processing center, five production lines have been added here. After the intelligent management system is improved, the capacity will be five times higher than now," said Ji Jianyi, general manager of Hubei Qingjiang Sturgeon Valley Special Fisheries Co., Ltd.

The project will build a new sturgeon deep processing plant of 3,472 square meters, a cold storage of 906 square meters and a comprehensive building of 3,268 square meters.

The Qing River, a tributary to the Yangtze, pours into the river at Yidu. The river has a year-round water temperature of no more than 23°C, which is the ideal environment for raising sturgeons.

Thanks to its natural advantage, Yidu’s Gaobazhou Reservoir of the Qing River experienced a boom in the aquaculture industry during the 1990s, which included the start of raising sturgeons in fish cages.

However, the fast growth resulted in serious water pollution issues. In 2016, Yidu began dismantling the fish cages that were built in rivers and moved the industry into sturgeon breeding bases.

The China Sturgeon Valley, whose construction began in 2018, now has a 60,000 square meter indoor breeding facility, using recirculating water. The facility is the largest in the world of its kind.

In the Qingjiang Sturgeon Valley in China, there are over 700 grid-like sturgeon breeding pools in an indoor aquaculture workshop. This breeding base now houses more than 1.2 million sturgeons of various species, many weighing over 100 kilograms. The annual caviar production capacity exceeds 100 tons, and the products are sought after by 10 different countries and regions.

As a result, the company has become a global leader in the caviar industry, making Yidu the "World's Capital of Sturgeons." Yidu is part of Yichang City, Hubei province.