Cheaper roe mislabelled as £1,280 per kilo caviar

The Queen’s supplier of caviar is under investigation over claims its top brand product contained cheaper and inferior stock.

Richmond Council is looking into King’s Fine Foods, which supplies Fortum & Mason, after a routine inspection in October found evidence of mislabelling.

The sample was taken from a tin of King’s sevruga caviar, priced at £1,280 per kg. DNA analysis showed that the caviar was actually roe from the cheaper acipenser ruthenus breed.

Department store Harrods was also sold the incorrectly labelled product. Kensington Palace, the Ritz, Liberty, the Groucho Club and Claridge’s are customers of the suppliers, though the establishments were not sold caviar from the batch in question.

On hearing of the discrepancy, King’s founder and co-owner, Laura King, said, she went to her supplier and demanded evidence that the caviar was of top-grade, which they could not provide.

She added that she then notified Harrods and Fortum & Mason about the mislabelling, but it was too late to recall the batch.

The BBC is also facing pressure from the caviar trade to re-edit a scene in a forth-coming episode of The Apprentice following the discovery. The mislabelled sevruga caviar features in the show when winners of the week’s task are rewarded with a King’s caviar tasting.