On Wednesday 13 March, Matís ohf. at Vínlandsleið 12 in Reykjavík, an open workshop in the WhiteFish project, which is funded by the European Union's 7th research program.
The project aims to develop methodologies and software that enable producers of cod and haddock products in a simple way to carry out assessments of the sustainability and environmental impact of their products. Icelandic companies and organizations play a key role in the project, but in addition Norwegian, Swedish, British and Dutch parties are involved in the project.
There is a growing demand for green accounting in international trade, and many of the world's largest retail chains have already announced that seafood producers who keep green accounts have priority in their purchases. For small and medium-sized businesses, meeting such requirements can be extremely costly and complicated.
The project is called WhiteFish and is a so-called "research project for the benefit of associations of small and medium-sized companies". The project, funded by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Union, will run for three years and has a total budget of almost three million Euros.
"The goal of the WhiteFish project is to ensure that small and medium-sized companies in the cod and haddock value chain have access to solutions that will help them keep track of the many positive qualities of whitefish from the Northeast Atlantic. This will probably give producers an advantage in the market ", says Petter Olsen from the food research institute Nofima in Norway, who is leading the project.
The WhiteFish project is owned by five industry associations from Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The association employs more than 1,200 small and medium-sized companies that have interests in fishing and processing of cod and haddock.
Four value chains of cod and haddock products within the aforementioned countries have been selected and will be subject to a life cycle analysis (LCA). This analysis will calculate the environmental impact of the products in each link in the value chain. Subsequently, methodologies and equipment will be developed that enable manufacturers to calculate the environmental impact in a simple way, with the use of traceability. The equipment will then be verified within the project.
The WhiteFish project has now been going on for over a year and at the working meeting various preliminary results will be announced and contributions will be sought for the continued progress of the project from those who are interested.
The meeting is open to everyone and participation is free, but those who intend to participate are asked to announce their participation to jonas.r.vidarsson@matis.is
More information can be found on the project's website www.whitefishproject.org or Jónas R. Viðarsson, tel. 422-5107