Hot springs in Alps make for luxury Swiss caviar

FRUTIGEN, Switzerland (AFP) - When thinking of Switzerland many things may come to mind, but caviar-making sturgeon frolicking in hot Alpine springs is perhaps not one of them.

Yet, a tunnel project that unexpectedly uncovered hot springs in the Bernese Alps a decade ago is gradually turning the land of exquisite watches and sumptuous cheese and chocolate into a producer to reckon with of luxury caviar.

"We could produce the first Swiss caviar a year ago," Mr Andreas Schmid, who heads marketing at Tropenhaus Frutigen, a company using geothermal energy from the Loetschberg rail tunnel to produce exotic fruit and now sturgeon meat and caviar.

Near the tiny village of Frutigen, in a valley flanked by towering, snow-dusted peaks, around 35,000 greyish black Siberian sturgeon bask in pools filled with naturally heated Alpine spring water.