After nine weeks of industrial action, Icelandic fishermen are back at sea this week and fresh supplies of the country’s whitefish are expected to start reaching key markets within 10 days to a fortnight.
The Icelandic fishing fleet had been tied up since mid-December amid a long running dispute over pay and work conditions. Therefore, news that an agreement had been reached by all sides involved was gratefully received by whitefish traders in Europe and much further afield. Many operations had had seen cod and haddock supplies thin out dramatically in the opening weeks of this year and were fearing that prices would soon start to soar.
The United Kingdom’s Grimsby fish market, for example, had reported that its Icelandic fish volumes were down by around 75 percent compared to usual levels and that operator Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises had been forced to to trim the number of staff needed to conduct daily sales.
However, the situation was much more severe in Iceland, where the strike led to 1,600 job losses and the closure of some businesses.
In 2016, Iceland’s fishing fleet landed almost 1.1 million MT of seafood, including 456,929 MT of demersal fish. Within this category, the cod catch amounted to 264,355 MT, while its haddock landings totaled 38,580 MT. A large proportion of this fish is exported.
Norway, the other main supplier to the European market, was unable to fully capitalize on the strike. Poor weather for fishing saw the country export just 4,000 metric tons (MT) of fresh cod last month, down 1,100 MT compared with January 2016. The Scandinavian country also exported 8,600 MT of frozen cod, a decrease of 1,600 MT.
