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A company in Australia has relied on the results of an IFL scientific article to advertise the equipment it manufactures. The main author of the article, which was recently published in the scientific journal Journal of Microbiological Methods, is Eyjólfur Reynisson, a biologist at IFL.

The Australian company is called Corbett Research and manufactures devices, tools and substrates for real-time PCR. They produce, among other things, Rotorgene3000, which is a real-time PCR device, but it was used in the study that IFL published this year. The study found that with their devices, the sensitivity of the analytical method had been highest compared to two other systems that were also tested.

The article in question is called Evaluation of probe chemistries and platforms to improve the detection limit of real-time PCR and Eyjólfur Reynisson is its main author. Other authors are MH Josefsen, M. Krause and J. Hoorfar.

Those who are interested in reading the article can go on Eyjólfur's CV page.

The project was recently completed Protein requirement of cod where ways were sought to reduce the cost of cod farming and make this young industry more profitable. Feed cost is 40-60% of the total production cost of the fire and therefore attention was focused on whether and how it could be reduced. A new IFL report presents the results of this study.

There has been a lot of talk about the alleged deplorable state of wild fish stocks recently, and the journal Science recently published a report predicting the collapse of all the world's fish stocks by the middle of this century. In fact, not everyone was prepared to accept this pessimistic forecast, including the director of the MRI.

Apart from these disputes, it is predicted that aquaculture, not least aquaculture of sea species such as cod, will grow enormously in the coming years and decades. Icelanders have been following this development closely, as have many nations in the North Atlantic, and cod farming has already begun in several places in Iceland. 

As stated earlier, feed costs are between 40-60% of the total production cost of the fire and in order to increase profitability in this industry, it is clear that there are most promising ways to reduce costs. Protein is the most expensive nutrient in feed for fish and therefore it is very important to minimize its content so that it goes primarily to building muscle and not to energy consumption, as cheaper nutrients, such as fat, can be of similar use.

In a new IFL report Protein requirements of farmed cod Among other things, a study was reported where the goal was to find the optimal protein content for two size categories of cod, on the one hand 30-100g and on the other hand 300-500g of cod. Among other things, the research showed that the larger cod's (300-500g) need for protein was less than what is normally used in factory-produced feed today. There is therefore possibly one way to reduce feed costs without compromising the quality of the cod.

Protein requirement of cod which was a two-year project funded by the AVS Fund. The project was part of a larger project, Feed for Atlantic cod, which was funded by the Nordic Industrial Development Fund October 2003 - 2006. Icelandic participants in the project were IFL, Fóðurverksmiðjan Laxá, Hólaskóli, SR mjöl, the University of Akureyri and Brim fiskeldi.

Dr. Guðrún Ólafsdóttir, a food scientist at IFL, recently received an honorary award named after Earl P. McFee. The award was presented at a celebration program in connection with the TAFT 2006 conference, which took place in Quebec City, Canada on October 29. to Nov. 1

The conference was organized WEFTA (West European Fish Technologists Association), an association of scientists in the field of fish industry research in Western Europe and AFTC (Atlantic Fisheries Technologists Conference), a similar organization of scientists on the east coast of North America and Canada.

An old dream of many scientists came true in 2003 when the TAFT 2003 (Trans Atlantic Fisheries Technology Conference) was held in Iceland, where many of the leading scientists from Europe, the United States and Canada in the field of research on seafood and its utilization came together for the first time and compared their books. IFL was responsible for organizing the conference in 2003, and it was considered so successful that another TAFT conference, which would be held in the West Sea in 2006 and Quebec City in Canada, was chosen.

The award is named after Earl P. McFee, who pioneered in the middle of the last century for frozen products from frozen fish blocks and use in fish burgers at McDonalds. The AFTC organization established The Earl P. McFee Award in 1971 for the purpose of recognizing those who deserve special credit for their research and technological development in fish and seafood processing and for promoting the interaction of scientists, industry and government. The emphasis today is on further strengthening the co-operation between AFTC and WEFTA and aiming for joint conferences and research co-operation in the field of seafood.

Many world-renowned researchers in this field have received the award in recent decades, and several of them attended TAFT 2006, including Herb Hultin (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Tom Gill (Dalhousie University, Halifax), Michael Morrissey (Oregon State University). ), Chong Lee (University of Rhode Island), Tire C. Lanier and David Green (North Carolina State University), and Luc Leclerc (Aquatic Products Technology Center, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Quebec, Canada), who co-organized the conference with Pierre Blier (Québec University, Rimouski). Torger Börresen of the Danish Fish Research Institute DIFRES, which won the award in 2003, presented the award this time, which was in addition to the award, a small statue made by a Canadian artist of Inuit descent.

As reported here on the web earlier this year, two IFL staff went to Sri Lanka last May under the auspices of the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) to assess the quality of fishing ports in that country and the purpose was to prepare courses to address these issues. in a better state. ÞÞSÍ's newsletter reports that the first course was recently held there.

In a news item on the IFL website th. On 5 July, the trip of Birna Guðbjörnsdóttir and Sveinn V. Árnason to Sri Lanka in May was announced, who went to get acquainted with the situation and make an assessment of the improvements that should be made in the quality of ports and fish processing in Sri Lanka. The result of that trip was the recently held course.

According to Árni Helgason, ICEIDA's Regional Director for Sri Lanka, quality degradation is a major problem in the Sri Lankan fishing industry, but it is estimated that 30-40% of catch is spoiled from the time fish is caught until it reaches the consumer's table. "Loss of value and reduced nutritional value are a lot of these reasons," says Árni, in an interview on ICEIDA's website.

The course, which IFL took part in preparing, consists of 16 lectures on various aspects of the quality of fish products and the organization of good treatment of fish in port areas. The study material was published in English, Sinhala and Tamil, which are the languages spoken in Sri Lanka. Posters were made on sinhala and Tamil and will be hung up in port areas and landing stations to promote and remind the importance of good treatment of fish.

See more about the course on the website of the Marine Research Institute of Sri Lanka (NARA).

This morning, a seminar was held at the Institute of Public Administration at H.Í. and the Association of Directors of Government Institutions, where the advantages and disadvantages of the public limited company form in public activities were discussed and compared with the traditional form of public administration. Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir, CEO of IFL and future CEO of Matís ohf was among those who spoke at the seminar.

The seminar was held at the Grand Hotel Reykjavík and the speakers were Arnar Þór Másson, an expert in the Ministry of Finance and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Iceland, Páll Magnússon, Radio Director and Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir, CEO of IFL and future CEO of Matís ohf.

Sjafnar's speech was entitled Public limited company publicization advantages and disadvantages and you can view slides from the presentation by click here.

Yesterday, the annual audit of the Swedish certification body SWEDAC took place due to the accreditation of service measurements at IFL. This was the 10th time that such an audit has been carried out at IFL and also the last time that IFL will merge with two other institutions in Matís ohf at the end of next year.

According to Heiða Pálmadóttir, head of IFL's Service Division, EU regulations have stipulated since 1994 that all measurements must be carried out in accredited test laboratories. In annual visits goes SWEDAC (Styrelsen för accreditering och tekninsk kontrol) including the entire quality system to verify whether it meets the requirements for accreditation.  

After the end of the year, when the new company Matís ohf takes office, it will have to apply again for accreditation, as two accredited units will then be merged.

Margareta Ottosson was the chief assessor this time and took care of the audit of chemical measurements and Ann-Charlotte Steneryd took out microbiological measurements.

These staff were satisfied with the work at IFL and also provided staff with useful information on what could be done better, but it is precisely such suggestions that have helped IFL's staff to be at the forefront of their field in recent years.

The editor of the American newspaper NYT yesterday discussed the assessment of two reputable institutions in that country about the advantages and disadvantages of eating fish. To put it bluntly, both institutions find that the benefits outweigh the potential risks.

The institutions in question are the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (IMNAS) on the one hand and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) on the other. In their opinion, the benefits of fish consumption far outweigh the potential risks from pollution and microbes for most people. Even "sensitive" consumers, such as pregnant women and young children, benefit from increased fish consumption, if they cut from dangerous species.

According to IMNAS 'expert group, the positive effects of fish consumption include the fact that fish contains high-quality proteins, many vitamins and minerals. They point out that pregnant women can possibly have a positive effect on the vision and development of their children's brains through fish consumption, but also warn that this group and young children eat large predatory fish such as sharks and swordfish.

The guide says that experts from HSPH take even deeper into the years and assert that even moderate fish consumption can reduce the risk of death from coronary artery disease by up to 36%. In fact, the lead author of the NYT states that there is considerable uncertainty as to whether increased fish consumption can prevent coronary artery disease in those who have had it before, and that it is also uncertain whether fish consumption reduces the risk of diabetes, various cancers and Alzheimer's disease. previously indicated.

In the end, the NYT leader encourages the labeling of seafood to be improved so that consumers can more easily understand what fish species they are buying in supermarkets and fishmongers.

Read the NYT conductor

As the clear visitors of the IFL site have probably noticed, people were recently asked to take part in consumer surveys of cod here at IFL. The first part of the survey started today and a total of 100 people will take part in it today.

Participants are divided into six groups and the first group arrived at 10 this morning and the last one will come at 8 tonight. Each group will taste three different samples of cod and answer questions about the cod samples and then about fish consumption in general.

The second part of the survey involves people receiving cod that they are to cook at home, a total of 6 times over a 6-week period (every Tuesday) from October 17 to November 21. In particular, the participation of families was requested, as at least two were 18 years of age or older. 

People did not let the cold outside deter them from coming down to Skúlagata 4 this morning to get cod for breakfast.

A project was recently completed here at IFL where it was investigated whether it is possible to use less detergent for routine cleaning of fish processing equipment, but with the same result. Reducing the concentration of detergents can mean financial efficiency for the fish processing companies and not least more environmentally friendly working methods.

To find out, a series of experiments were set up examining several aspects of the general cleaning process, which were: Type of surface (stainless steel and plastic), temperature of rinsing water (8 or 28 ° C), two types of detergent and concentration of detergent (2% and 4,5%).

To evaluate these factors, a newly installed washing station at IFL was used, which makes it possible to standardize the cleaning better than previously known. Bacteria from their natural environment (minced cod) were used to form bacterial coatings on steel and plastic surfaces. Bacterial counts were used to assess the effects of the factors in the washing process. The results showed that on a steel surface it is possible to use a lower concentration of detergents than recommended and still achieve comparable results (Figure 1). As can be seen, these washing processes manage to destroy all bacteria on the surface, regardless of the temperature of the rinsing water and the concentration of detergent.

However, in the case of plastic surfaces, the results were not as conclusive and it was generally more difficult to eradicate the bacteria.

Figure 1. Example of results after washing cycle on steel surface.

Another aspect of this project was the analysis of the natural bacterial flora in the bacterial epithelium and a comparison of methods based on culture (Figure 2) and methods based on the amplification of the genetic material by molecular biological methods. Samples were taken from steel and plastic surfaces from the traditional washing processes of fish processing houses.  Somewhat similar results were obtained with each method.

Figure 2. Bacterial flora grown on iron rods.

The project was funded by the ACP and the Ministry of Fisheries.

A report has been published in the project called Better washing practices in fish processing plants (IFL report 26 - 06) Read

The aim is also to publish the results of the project in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

It can be said that a semi-autumn season has been spent publishing IFL reports, but in the last two weeks nine IFL reports have been completed, which is unusually large in such a short time. Most of these reports are open and accessible on IFL's website.

In the old days, there was talk that the autumn season would begin on 29 September. and will last until Christmas and this autumn season at IFL started around that time, but whether this season will last until Christmas, time will tell. One explanation for this growth in publishing could be that at the turn of the year, IFL will merge with two other institutions in the company Matís ohf, and therefore every effort is now being made to complete the projects that are bound by IFL before that time.

Of the nine recently released reports, most are open, while others are confidential, at least temporary. Various interesting results are published in the reports, such as an assessment of the possibilities of processing blue whiting into much more valuable products than is currently the case (report 25-06), another describes attempts to measure surface tension Pseudomonas putida and Listeria monocytogenes, to be able to explain why these bacteria are so common in the food industry (report 24-06), which was a joint project of IFL and the Institute of Technology.

In 2003, at the initiative of the Ministry of Fisheries, monitoring of undesirable substances in marine products, both products intended for human consumption and products for the fish oil and flour industry, began. The purpose of the monitoring is to assess the condition of Icelandic seafood in terms of the amount of contaminants. The third report from this project has now been published and covers the year 2005 (report 22-06).

There is now a growing debate in many places about what rules should apply to the labeling of food, and it is worth mentioning the discussion about genetically modified food. Fish and seafood are not excluded from this discussion and in report 21-06 an attempt is made to shed light on whether the added fish protein in fish products is subject to labeling. In addition, information was sought on methods that can be used to measure added substances, such as phosphate, water and fish protein, in fish products.

Finally, there is a report on the classification of microorganisms and experiments with the use of additive bacteria in aquaculture, which is a preventive project with the aim of using environmentally friendly methods to increase the performance of halibut and cod larvae in fire (18-06).

These and other open IFL reports can be found by click here.