Iceland Sustainable Fisheries’ (ISF) anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius – a type of monkfish) has achieved certification to the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard, making it the first anglerfish fishery in the world to secure the blue eco-label.
Historically, the species was caught in the bottom trawl fishery, but fishing has developed to gillnets and other gear. From 2000 to 2007 most of the gillnet fishery’s catches took place in the south of Iceland, but since 2008 most of its fishing grounds are in the west of the country.
In recent years, the work of the main fishery has taken place in late summer and into the winter. Annual landings have been less than 1,000 metric tons (MT) a year for the last three years.
Gears that have been certified under the MSC assessment assessed are bottom trawl, nephrops trawl, Danish seine, gillnet, longline and anglerfish gillnet.
The United Kingdom is the most important market for anglerfish product, taking over 60 percent of the export and about 70 percent of the total export is sold as fresh (tails). Other important markets for Icelandic anglerfish are Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France and Benelux.
“We are proud that anglerfish is the latest addition to our MSC certified fisheries. The catch quantity is not much – only 853 MT this fishing year – which makes the cost of certification expensive per ton. However, that does not change the fact that we want to be sustainable. Size doesn't matter and neither does quantity. Hopefully, consumers will appreciate the effort to bring large and small quantity species from sustainable sources to their plate,” said Kristinn Hjálmarsson, ISF project manager.
ISF was set up in 2012 to be the fishery client group for the Icelandic seafood industry. The group aims to gain MSC certification for all Icelandic fish stocks and now counts over 50 membership companies.
