Local Fish Farm Catches Delicacy’s Largest Producer

DIXON, CA (MPG) - A few miles out Hackman Road past peaceful row crops and cattle, a bluff hides several large ponds looking like giant rectangles lined up next to each other and filled with sturgeon that occasionally leap out of the water with seemingly total abandon. In our small town known for lamb and steak, there is now Caviar.

This is where Erick Shih started a fish farm. Born and raised in Taiwan, Shih, a professed “animal lover” went to veterinary school in Taiwan, had a pet crocodile in college, then came to UC Davis for a Master’s Degree with a life plan to be “a simple fish farmer,” he said. After graduating in 1995, he bought 40 acres between Davis and Dixon and with the help of Dixonite Brett Atkinson, carved out 10 large ponds for Lazy Q Fish Ranch.

Over the years, he added two additional land purchases from neighbors and the 160-acre farm with fish in 60 ponds, flourished. Across the nation, fish have been traditionally grown only in tanks. Shih’s ‘pond methodology’ caught the attention of a New York businessman Eugene Fernandez. 

Fernandez, a father of five including two who are married and 14-year-old triplets, had lost his Dad to cancer. 

“My father was my best friend and he died too soon because of pesticides,” he said. In his grief, he started seriously studying about pesticides and sustainability--the capacity of earth’s biosphere and human civilization to co-exist. He read about the aquaculture industry--fish farms, green houses, and hydroponics. Although his own successful company was in construction originally started with his father, Fernandez finally flew to California and met Shih. They sealed a multi-million dollar deal the traditional Dixon way: a handshake.

“I carry holy water, my rosary and a cross everywhere I go,” said Fernandez explaining his parents gave him a strong faith. “I can’t explain it, but I get pushed to do something. I got into this because of my father.”

There is a mutual admiration with Fernandez’s business expertise and work ethic garnered from his immigrant parents from Spain and Shih’s knowledge of all-things-fish, the company boomed and just a couple years ago, Fernandez purchased Sterling Caviar, the nation's largest producer of caviar in Elverta next to the Sacramento River. It is also the home of what Fernandez deems as the “model farm where everything is computerized including the fish’s oxygen.”

They plan to start building greenhouses next year in Dixon. Over the next five years, the company will produce seven to ten million pounds of fish.

The Fish

Sturgeons were around in the age of dinosaurs and have an 80-year life span, maturing at around 15 years, and having distinctive characteristics like having a fin similar to a shark, although they have no teeth and are docile. They have white tummies, gray backs, and an elongated body that appears smooth and scaleless.

White sturgeon are not endangered and are reproduced in fish farms.

Sturgeon always move. They are very hearty fish. They have no teeth and are bottom-feeders meaning their mouths are like vacuum hoses, sucking up their food from the bottom of the pond, river, or ocean. In Dixon, a tractor blows out food comprised of chad and gold shrimp among other sources of nutrients into the ponds where it sinks.

The adult sturgeon looks like a skinny shark with vertically-lined white bumps on the back which looks something akin to exposed vertebrae. Females are raised for their eggs and males are raised for their meat.

The Tanks

The babies look like pollywogs and wiggle with speed through the circular water tanks like busy birds do in the sky. From the time they are 3-inches, they are given a 5-feet wide fiberglass pond to play with other newborns and have 900 friends swimming with them. 

About every seven days, they are sized and moved to the next holding tank. They begin with losing about 70 fish a day for various reasons to only two a day dying. The bit bigger fish are about 500 to a tank. When they are six to eight months or 16-18-inches, they go to the large, dirt-bottom ponds in Dixon. 

Each of the 48 large concrete tanks that are 50-feet in diameter and 10-feet deep that are housed in metal buildings in Elverta hold 30- to 50-thousand pounds of fish. They make the water seem like it’s bubbling while swimming around looking like 8-feet-long glistening snakes.

Harvest Time

Sturgeon mature in these facilities in half the time due to near-perfect conditions. The female eggs are 10-percent of their body weight unless you do not remove them. In that case, they get reabsorbed in the body and the next year, are up to 14-percent. The eggs are also bigger and tastier which is a huge selling point for caviar.

The females get ultrasounds to determine if their eggs are ready for harvest. During “harvest season,” the roe sacks are removed and gently rubbed over a mesh screen to detach the roe from the ovary membrane. These eggs are washed, drained, and set aside to be salt-cured and graded.  

They are then packed in 1 kg OTs (original tins) and refrigerated at the ideal temperature between 28 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit. These OTs are normally sold to wholesalers, distributors, repackers, and other large-volume customers. For those customers ordering smaller portions online, the caviar is repacked into smaller tins with a “Proudly Made in the USA” flag sticker on the back of each tin.

Sterling Caviar

“Only Sturgeon fish eggs can be considered ‘caviar,’ and I love sharing the story about Sterling Caviar and our commitment to true sustainability, the traceability of our product, and the integrity of our company,” Sterling Caviar General Manager Myra Tallerico said. “With Sacramento being the “Farm-to-Fork” capital of the U.S., it’s surprising that white sturgeon is not a regular restaurant menu item, but we’re working to change that.” Tallerico is dedicated to transparency in the entire operation to dispel the “black mark” on the industry caused by a recent news story where a local fish farm, Passmore Ranch, was outed for selling Chinese caviar and relabeling them as his own. 

“It’s unfortunate that Passmore was able to carry on this deceit for several years, and why--more than ever--consumers should always ask where the caviar they’re purchasing comes from.  Caviar from China is known to contain borax and there are a lot of caviar purveyors importing these products into the U.S. who are not providing full disclosure.  Know the source!” she said.

The whole team at Sterling Caviar are part of the ‘farm-to-fork’ movement and now with a recently-built state-of-the-art Repack Building, coupled with a user-friendly website, orders of the black gold can be delivered to one’s door overnight.

“As we move towards a post-pandemic economy, there are a lot of opportunities opening up for the Dixon farm, as well as Sterling Caviar. It’ll be a lot of hard work, but Eugene, Eric and I are cut from the same cloth and we don’t shy away from hard work – a key to our individual, and collective, successes,” she said, pitching that there may even be something in caviar skincare in the future, as mentioned in Forbes Magazine and USA Today.