The master's degree defense in food science at the University of Iceland will be held on Tuesday 26 May 2009 at Matís' premises at Skúlagata 4 and starts at 15.00. Guðjón Þorkelsson will present and direct the defense.
Master's student Cyprian Ogombe Odoli from Kenya, a former student at the United Nations Fisheries Academy (UNU), has now completed his project in this field.
Supervisors were: Sigurjón Arason and Emilía Martinsdóttir
The Arctic Tilapia project that has been worked on at Matís is funded by the Technology Development Fund and the goal of the project is to develop products that make tilapia whitefish fish in a closed farm that uses cooling water from a large steam power plant economically in Iceland. Ragnar Jóhannsson division manager at Matís ohf. runs the company Arctic Tilapia together with others and their goal is to grow tilapia fish in Iceland. In order for this to happen, product marketing channels must be in place and secure. It is not possible to compete in frozen fish markets because competition from East Asia is too fierce. A prerequisite for cost-effectiveness is to sell the fish in valuable markets in Europe, such as the market for fresh fillets, but in order to do so, the fillets must be transported by sea and certain associated freshness problems must be solved. The future vision is that low heat from the steam power plants can be used to produce large quantities of fillets for valuable markets.