Richard Brauman always loved caviar. But for many years the former Federal Reserve employee found that, no matter how much he was willing to pay for quality, the goods often had a stale, fishy taste. He blamed it on the traditional practices of companies in caviar-producing countries like Russia and Iran, where fish eggs are harvested infrequently and may be heavily preserved with salt and borax.
Brauman, 34, thought he could do better. So in 2005 he launched The Little Pearl in Somerville, Mass., to source caviar from farms and fisheries where fish are handled humanely, harvested year-round and fed a combination of their natural diet and commercially produced food pellets. In 2007, Bon Appetit conferred its Best American Caviar award on salmon eggs from The Little Pearl.
Today the 10-employee company has a distribution deal with Whole Foods and offers 13 varieties of American caviar. Prices range from $11.99 for two ounces of whitefish caviar sold in New England to $99.99 for one ounce of “T Rex” — white sturgeon caviar from Idaho — sold in Texas. In 2009, The Little Pearl brought in revenue of $410,000.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: CNN