From aquaculture development and processing to caviar safaris and culinary tourism, it’s all about Atlantic and shortnose sturgeons for a unique New Brunswick company that is growing.
Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar was founded by Cornel Ceapa in 2005. A native of Romania with a passion for the ancient fish species, Ceapa and his family moved to New Brunswick in the early 2000s.
Acadian Sturgeon owns and operates two land-based sturgeon farming locations. Since 2005, the Carters Point sturgeon hatchery near Saint John has been producing local native sturgeon species (Atlantic and shortnose) juveniles, mostly for the farming operations, producing between 5,000 to 10,000 juveniles per year, said Ceapa.
In 2016, in Charlo (Northern New Brunswick), Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar opened a land-based sturgeon nursery and grow-out that now houses about 20,000 shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon in different life stages, about 1/3 of them mature and the rest juveniles and subadults, said Ceapa.
“We harvest annually about 1,000 to 2,000 adult shortnose sturgeon (three to four feet long) and this will increase in time by about 20 per cent per year. The Charlo operation has gravity fed water supply most of the year, while in the winter we use water reuse recirculation system to keep an optimal temperature for wintering,” Ceapa said.
Since 2008, Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar has operated a Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspected processing plant for both wild and farmed sturgeon. “We process the maximum 350 wild Atlantic sturgeon a year (sustainable scientific quota strictly enforced) and about one to two thousand farmed shortnose sturgeon, while growing every year a larger number of juveniles as we develop the Canadian market,” said Ceapa.
“We sell mostly in Canada and have developed the market through education. We produce three brands of caviar (Acadian Gold, Acadian Emerald and Acadian Wild) that are considered some of the best in the world — we won international recognition in Monaco in November 2025, but we also use the rest of the sturgeon nose to tail, selling raw fillets and loins, smoked sturgeon products and even sturgeon preserved skins for display and leather products in the future.”
Since 2024, Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar has been offering an educational tasting menu of sturgeon and caviar prepared by a professional chef to groups of tourists taking one of the three experiences offered by Acadian Sturgeon.
The tasting experience master class offered year-round at Acadian Sturgeon facilities or anywhere in Canada is a multi-course tasting and education experience.
People taking the two-day culinary retreat participate in sturgeon harvesting, get a research tour of the facilities, a river boat tour, a bonfire, sturgeon barbecue and multi-course tasting and education.
The caviar safari takes participants on a speed boat ride on the Saint John River, a visit to the hatchery, ending with a multi-course tasting and education feast.
“The visitors will observe wild sturgeon fishing, will be educated about sustainability, then coming back on shore they will be visiting the sturgeon hatchery, petting little “dinosaur” fish and finishing with a sturgeon and caviar multi-course tasting and educational feast,” reads the website.
“We have contracts with Tauck Tours for another two years in advance for about 30 to 40 groups (1,000 tourists in total),” said Ceapa.
To enhance the experiences, Acadian Sturgeon and Caviar is opening a sturgeon and caviar educational and culinary tourism experience building in Carters Point in May.
“The building houses a state-of-the-art professional kitchen and tasting room, two viewing tanks for live sturgeon, a few rooms for invited chefs who will visit us, get educated about sturgeon and caviar and do pop-up events outside of the summer tourism season,” said Ceapa.
Acadian Sturgeon plans to build a second land-based nursery with grow-out capacity on the 12 acres of land they own near the tourism building in the next three or four years.
For the first 10 to 15 years it was in business, Acadian Sturgeon exported live sturgeon eggs for restocking in the Baltic Sea where our sturgeon used to be native and they disappeared, for research in the U.S. and Europe and for some aquaculture in the United States and Asia, Ceapa said.
“We stopped doing so recently as we keep the uniqueness of our species for our business and also because the countries around Baltic Sea have in time developed their own broodstock. Canadian stocks are in very good numbers and do not need any restocking. Actually, I personally consider restocking to be done only when absolutely needed because it may have very detrimental effects on the wild stocks if these stocks are still present. Restocking, as a parallel, should be done like an organ transplant in humans, only when this is the last option after other options are considered and tried,” said Ceapa.
“The sturgeon species we grow are local and no other company in the world has developed these species for aquaculture, we are pioneering this. Also unique in the world is us producing in parallel both wild sustainable harvested sturgeon and responsibly farmed sturgeon and offering the nose to tail products to the Canadian market, mostly restaurants, seafood stores and online,” Ceapa added.
“Fish and other organism farming should be developed not after overharvesting the wild resources but in parallel with the wild harvest in order to keep both these human activities sustainable. Also, when farming we should aim for a quality of the farmed products similar and comparable with the wild and not only on the quantity produced. This is the only way to save the wild and make it more sustainable. Food is the fuel of life and aquaculture has sometimes a bad reputation of producing lower quality food and for pollution it can sometimes do. Aquaculture and fishing need to be parallel activities, equally sustainable and of equal quality of the food produced, this is what we are developing here, selling these products side by side and to be compared.”
Acadian Sturgeon has a retail shop where tins of Acadian Caviar, packs of sliced smoked sturgeon, smoked sturgeon pate, mother of pearl caviar spoons and t-shirts and hats with their logo are available for purchase. Acadian Sturgeon currently employs 10 full-time and five part-time summer employees, but expects its workforce will grow.
