Playfully often known as “The Caviar Queen”, Natalie Rebeiz, COO of Caviar Home, was born right into a household of caviar pioneers; her late father Georges Rebeiz, well-known for founding the corporate “Caviar Home” in 1950 and brother, Peter Rebeiz, present CEO.
Natalie was uncovered to caviar from a really younger age and was actively concerned within the manufacturing from the age of eight. Natalie tells us of her distain for caviar at this age, “my father all the time taught us that after we packed caviar, you should all the time attempt it beforehand to examine the standard, however I hated it, I actually hated it!” By Natalie’s childhood she would study every part there was to find out about caviar and grew to like and respect the black pearls. She recalled the time she fell in love with caviar, aged 19. “I keep in mind vividly, opening a 1.8 kilo tin of Beluga from Iran, and the odor was euphoric, it hit me, and I used to be in love”. Her purpose can be to maneuver to London and open the primary store within the UK. When Natalie was 20, she did precisely as she had got down to do… the primary of many caviar outlets had been born in one in every of London’s most distinguished postcodes of Mayfair. Prospects at this time can spend greater than £1,700 for a single tin of the little gray sturgeon eggs. Its reputation grows all through the ever-changing market.
Forward, Natalie shares with us her journey into the world of caviar.
You’re at present primarily based in London. Are you able to tell us extra in regards to the fascinating story behind Caviar Home & Prunier?
Since 1950, Caviar Home has traditionally been the world’s largest importer and distributor of superb caviar. In 2004 we joined forces with Prunier — the primary firm to supply caviar in France in 1920, with the all however modest purpose of merely producing the very most interesting caviar recognized to man. The data and know-how of good caviar has been transmitted by Russian specialists to Prunier as early as 1921. As we speak Prunier caviar continues to be produced in accordance with this heritage and historical recipes. Improved methods in recent times have allowed us to acquire an excellent product, unique for its explicit flavour and excellent style.
Each corporations, which at this time below one roof are known as Caviar Home & Prunier have remained unwilling to sacrifice high quality or any steps main thereto and subsequently keep inside present market requirements. We proceed to imagine that the one acceptable normal is your admiration, utilizing solely the very most interesting uncooked supplies in each step of the best way. Our caviar masters and manufacturing designers are all pushed with the identical purpose: to supply the last word culinary sensations when experiencing a Caviar Home & Prunier product.
A primary store in Geneva in 1968 which your father opened, then one other one in Heathrow in 1983 which you opened aged solely 20. What particular wants did you see amongst trendy travellers which airports didn’t present solutions to?
Luxurious meals retail to go and take wherever on the planet. Nobody dreamt of taking caviar, salmon, cheese, or any of our different superb meals with them on a flight earlier than we opened. There was no luxurious or superb meals accessible again within the 60s and 80s. All of the airport supplied was duty-free items, so we had been the one different store airside within the early days.
Making the airport a part of the vacation spot. We love this idea! How do you prepare your employees to make travellers really feel welcomed and relaxed when airports are often synonymous with stress?
Workers retention is essential. We now have a member of our workforce that has simply celebrated her thirty ninth 12 months with us. She has turn into an envoy for our model. We provide strict coaching guaranteeing that each one employees members are totally educated about our product. All employees should undertake often up to date and refreshed coaching of our service excellence steps. The employees really feel a part of a household, to dwell and breathe the merchandise and love and have ardour for them.
You talked about a number of instances that “freshness is within the DNA of Caviar Home & Prunier”. Are you able to elaborate additional on this?
All the pieces produced within the seafood bars is ready in entrance of you. No hidden kitchens. All merchandise are delivered every day to make sure freshness. And, all of our fish merchandise are from sustainable sources. We proceed to carefully observe the progress inside aquaculture, particularly associated to sturgeon farming after all.
What made you resolve you to open a Caviar Home & Prunier on the Hong Kong airport, a market slightly far out of your European base? What did you study out of your Chinese language clientele?
Provide and demand. Our Chinese language clientele are a few of our greatest prospects, craving distinctive produce.
With a world ban on wild caviar, what number of styles of farmed caviar are there at this time in the marketplace? Which number of caviar is Caviar Home & Prunier predominantly utilizing?
There are over 400 varieties. Caviar Home & Prunier, in contrast to many different suppliers of caviar worldwide, provide their very personal farmed caviar — Prunier. One of many major caviar producers on the planet, Prunier was based over 100 years in the past and was the primary producer to acquire caviar from farmed sturgeons (in 1994), making a sustainable and secure various for endangered species within the Caspian Sea. As we speak, the grain choice course of, in addition to the recipes of the Prunier Manufacture, make it attainable to supply caviars with very totally different flavours. There are at present seven Prunier caviars accessible, together with three new Osciètre varieties.
The British Butler Institute has these days teamed up with luxurious manufacturers to help college students who’ve accomplished certification to use for contract positions with luxurious retail manufacturers. One such firm is Caviar Home & Prunier. Are you able to inform us extra on this partnership?
We now have labored with the butler faculty for a few years, and internet hosting coaching occasions all through our venues. In flip, we have now employed the butler faculty to supply service excellence coaching to our groups.
Caviar Home & Prunier can be now the only real distributor of Balik salmon, which takes its identify from a Russian phrase that means the choicest minimize of the fish. Inform us extra there about this foray into the high-end salmon market?
Introducing for the primary time ever in 1978 the fillet of smoked salmon, (Fillet Tsar Nicolaj) Balik launched to the world a totally new method of salmon consumption and preparation originating from a 150-year-old recipe utilized by the imperial court docket of Russia.
Within the midst of the picturesque panorama of the Toggenburg area in Japanese Switzerland, one can find the Balik Farm nestled snugly within the hills on the finish of the small village of Ebersol. One factor have to be stated from the outset: “Balik Räucherei” is the manufacture, the place arguably the world’s most well-known smoked salmon is produced. Right here, our smokery grasp and his workforce course of the noble Salmo Salar (salmon) in accordance with a secret previous Russian recipe right into a mouth-watering delicacy, which is then shipped to all corners of the world. The 4 manufacturing steps — watering, salting, smoking, and dressing — are all completed by hand. The one two items of apparatus that we use within the Balik Manufacture are digital scales and a vacuuming machine.
Thought-about by most lovers to be the best-smoked salmon on the planet, the Balik salmon traces its roots again to imperial Russia, the place the artwork of superb eating and its high quality reached unprecedented ranges among the many Russian aristocracy. If any smokery of salmon has ever shaken the world of smoked salmon it’s no doubt the Balik Smokery within the Swiss Alps.
The place do you see Caviar Home & Prunier 5 years from now? What are the important thing milestones forward?
Sooner or later at a time.
Inform us about your wonderful fishing journey in Iran on the Caspian Sea a couple of years again. The catch of a sturgeon there within the very birthplace of caviar should have been a slightly extraordinary expertise.
Again within the 90s, my brother and I went fishing with native Iranian fishermen — the bus journey from Teheran was hell and lasted eight hours. I used to be coated in a blue polyester abaya and didn’t put on any make-up — and it was an Osciètre that I pulled out from the ocean in an old style fishing web at 4 o’clock within the morning. An hour and a half after catching the fish I used to be having tea and consuming its caviar with the fishermen and searching over the Caspian Sea. It was an incredible feeling and the hospitality was heart-warming. I used to be additionally engaged on my guide on the time, “Caviar – The Definitive Information” (2001) and so had introduced alongside a photographer. In one of many photos, the fisherman’s son had positioned himself within the fish’s stomach, to point out how huge it was. It appeared so macabre that I didn’t publish it. We discovered a lot from that journey and it was right here that we determined we would have liked our personal farm after seeing how depleted the shares had been changing into.
Are you able to divulge to our readers which number of caviar is your favourite?
My favorite can be our hero product, the Caviar Home Most interesting Beluga Caviar. “Beluga caviar is like no different caviar. It’s fully incomparable and unrivalled.” [Editor’s note: Beluga caviar evokes fond memories of her discovery of caviar as a young entrepreneur.]
When you had been to call one mentor who has impressed you in your profession, who would that be?
My father, George Rebeiz
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