Unlike commercial fishing, sea farming doesn’t have a rich, long history in Iceland.
In the 1990s, the country had its initial but, ultimately, unsuccessful foray into the sector. A second crack of the whip some 15 years ago unfortunately had much the same outcome, but the most recent wave of development has a different feel about it, with producers confident that the third time’s the charm. And they seem to be right – a successful aquaculture industry, led by salmon, is now within the country’s grasp.
The difference this time around for Icelandic sea farming is the arrival of strong overseas investment, explained Sigurdur Petursson, CEO of ArcticFish.
Around a year ago, Norway Royal Salmon (NRS) acquired a 50 percent stake in ArcticFish. The deal, said Petursson, brought three important benefits: Proven expertise of salmon farming in cold waters; a sophisticated sales and distribution network; and additional equity for future development. Interestingly, ArcticFish was not looking for investors at that time, but NRS was looking to establish new partnerships in Iceland.
NRS produces around 30,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon annually and its main farming areas are in the north of Norway, which is on a similar latitude to Iceland’s Westfjords – its main salmon farming region.
“We are getting a getting a lot of input from them; they are being very helpful with our RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) hatchery, our sea pens and our smolts. It’s a very good partnership,” said Petursson.
ArcticFish itself is a young venture. The company was founded in 2011 to capitalize on Iceland’s natural fish farming conditions for the delivery of high-value salmonids through an integrated model – from hatchery to processing. It started with trout, with last year’s harvest at 1,500 MT, and a bit of Arctic char, but the focus today is purely on Atlantic salmon, having harvested its last trout in April 2016.
Today, around 700,000 salmon smolt are in ArcticFish’s sea pens, which should result in 2,500 MT of market-size Icelandic salmon.
The company’s salmon harvest will begin in 2018 with its marketing and branding focusing on country of origin and the value that Iceland and Icelandic seafood already have on the international stage. It is also at present the only company in Iceland to be Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certified.
It’s not all plain sailing, though. Licensing continues to provide a major barrier to the overall growth of Iceland’s salmon sector, with producers unable to move forward with expansion plans without being granted additional licenses. Indeed, before any farmer can obtain a permit to grow salmon in open sea cages, authorities need to be satisfied on a number of criteria and this means the Marine Research Institute (MRI) has to make an evaluation of how much production can be achieved by the area in question. At the same time, the powerful angling lobby has long provided strong opposition to any new aquaculture licenses being granted.
Despite these difficulties, Einar Gudfinnsson, chairman of the Icelandic Aquaculture Association (IAA), told SeafoodSource that he believes the tide is turning and the resistance to sea farming growth is waning, which would hopefully lead to more salmon licenses being granted.
Petursson agrees with Gudfinnsson’s assessment, saying, “If you had asked me one year ago, I wouldn’t have been very optimistic – everything froze and we weren’t getting anywhere. I think that at that point, even those people who were in opposition had had enough. But now things are improving and new risk assessment evaluations are being conducted by MRI.”
According to the IAA, Iceland produced around 8,000 MT of salmon last year and Gudfinnsson believes this will increase to between 10,000 and 12,000 MT by the end of this year. In 2018/19, it should come close to 20,000 MT, he said.
While the overall capacity remains limited at present, in terms of what could potentially be produced and based on a recent risk assessment evaluation, the association believes that eventually it would be possible to dial up Iceland’s salmon production to more than 70,000 MT per year, with 50,000 MT coming from the Westfjords and 20,000 MT from the Eastfjords.
This would put Iceland’s salmon sector within touching distance of the Faroe Islands’ harvest (approximately 80,000 MT per year) and the consensus from the industry is that like the Faroes it should focus on quality rather than quantity.
The Faroes and Scotland have built up a strong brand when it comes to salmon, as such Petursson said both serve as excellent models to aspire to as they provide stories that consumers buy into and also achieve a premium in the market over salmon from other origins. At the same time, Iceland’s salmon sector comprises just a few salmon farmers, which he believes makes it possible to build an industry that collaborates rather than competes.
“These companies are all focused on high-quality fish, which will give ‘Iceland origin’ something of a brand in the market,” he said. “I believe that there is high demand for niche products from a country like Iceland. Also, we are closer to the United States than Norway or the Faroes and we have a good trade history there already. We are also the only country in Europe to have a free trade agreement with China and things are moving in that market too.”
With more destinations constantly being added to Keflavík International Airport’s flight departure board to support Iceland’s booming tourism sector, it seems that the country’s salmon has no shortage of overseas opportunity to explore if and when the licenses are granted.
