Greg Barker gets a tickle from eco-caviar
Marie Woolf, Whitehall Editor
CALL him the sturgeon general. The shadow climate change minister has developed a sideline that will make some of his fellow Tories choke: “ethical” caviar.
Greg Barker, a millionaire Conservative MP and the party’s green spokesman, is set to cash in on the latest fashion for fish-friendly sturgeon eggs.
However, weeks before a general election it is the last thing that David Cameron wants to see in his party diet. He has already banned champagne at its annual conference. Other than adding Eton mess as a dessert, nothing spells elitist more than caviar on the menu.
Barker, the MP for Bexhill and Battle, has revealed a financial interest in a British firm that produces the ethical caviar in Latvia. Unlike traditional caviar, which is obtained by killing the endangered sturgeon, it is extracted by massaging it out of live farmed fish which swim away when the process is complete. The sturgeon, which can live for 35 years, then grow more eggs 14 months later.
The brand, Mottra, was served at Tatler magazine’s 300th anniversary party and at the Frieze art fair. Penelope Cruz, the film star, is said to have bought several pots from Harvey Nichols in London.
Barker has been advising Sergei Trachuk, the Russian businessman who runs the company, and introducing the firm to City figures ahead of a possible float on the stock market.
He has now disclosed in the Commons register of interests that he has obtained a share option in Mottra. “Although I only have a very small interest, it is a cracking little company with a strong ethical and sustainable business and I am glad they are doing so well,” he said.
Barker is not the only Tory MP to back the eco-friendly caviar. Among its other supporters is Bill Wiggin, the Old Etonian Tory whip, whose wife Milly, a former girlfriend of Cameron, carried out promotional work for Mottra last year. Celebrity fans of the food also include Rick Stein, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracey Emin.
In addition to being less cruel, the technique helps to reduce the damage to wild sturgeon stocks. Over-fishing and poaching have devastated the traditional caviar fisheries in the Caspian Sea.
“We are trying to do things as naturally as possible and are at the early stages of establishing ourselves,” said Trachuk. “Greg [Barker] has been very helpful. He knows what he is doing.”