European whitefish buyers have taken a large collective sigh of relief following the decision taken by the Icelandic fishing fleet to end its strike after just a few days.
There were strong fears in the market that the industrial action over crew manning levels on pelagic and whitefish vessels, which began at 2300 on 10 November, would quickly lead to price hikes for fresh fish, particularly cod and haddock, as the volumes coming out of Norway are low at this time of year.
However, continued negotiations between the Icelandic Seamen’s Union (SSI) and owners’ federation SFS (Iceland Fisheries) led to an agreement being reached late on Sunday 13 November. The new deal includes an agreement to examine crew conditions.
The Icelandic fishing fleet landed whitefish totaling ISK 98 billion (USD 868 million, EUR 806.3 million) in the 12-months from August 2015 to July 2016, down 1.6 percent year-on-year. This included ISK 60.5 billion (USD 535.9 million, EUR 497.7 million) worth of cod (up 5.1 percent), ISK 10.2 billion (USD 90.3 million, EUR 83.9 million) of haddock (down 6 percent) and ISK 12.2 billion (USD 108.1 million, EUR 100.4 million) worth of redfish (down 11.7 percent).
Thanks largely to increased volumes of its cod, the EU’s seafood imports from Iceland registered growth of 19 percent last year, making the country the third largest EU supplier after Norway and China.
In total, Iceland supplied 935,500 metric tons (MT) of seafood products to the bloc in 2015 with a value in excess of EUR 1.1 billion (USD 1.2 billion), including 90,000 MT of cod valued at EUR 558 million (USD 600.9 million).
On average, Icelandic cod prices increased by 15 percent across the EU last year.
