Is caviar vegan?

Caviar is an ingredient consisting of salt-cured roe, or unfertilized eggs, harvested from fish belonging to the sturgeon family, though the term is sometimes applied to the roe of other fish such as paddlefish, salmon, or carp. It is produced by extracting the egg sacs directly from the fish, separating the individual eggs through a mesh screen, and mixing them with salt for preservation and curing.

This ingredient is typically sold on its own as a delicacy or used in seafood appetizers, sushi, garnishes, specialty dips, and gourmet spreads. Caviar is not vegan because it is an animal-derived product sourced entirely from fish. The harvesting process requires collecting eggs directly from female fish, making it inherently non-vegan. Plant-based substitutes made from seaweed or algae exist, but when the term caviar appears by itself on an ingredient list, it denotes real fish roe.