Category: News

The Agricultural Research Council will be held on the 15th -16th. February 2007 in the premises of Icelandic Genetics and in the Conference Halls of Hotel Saga. Several Matís experts have posters at the Research Conference this time.

There are four posters and they are the following in alphabetical order:

Effects of hypertension on growth Listeria and the visual structure of smoked salmon. The authors are Hannes Hafsteinsson, Birna Guðbjörnsdóttir and Ásbjörn Jónsson. Hannes and Ásbjörn are employees of Matís, but Birna previously worked for IFL.

Effect of chilling on lamb tenderloin. The authors are Ásbjörn Jónsson, Óli Þór Hilmarsson and Valur Norðri Gunnlaugsson. They are all Matís employees but previously worked at MATRA-Matvælarannsóknir Keldnaholt. It is worth mentioning that a report was recently published on Matís with the same name.  Read the report

Hypertension in meat processing.  The authors are Hannes Hafsteinsson, Ásbjörn Jónsson, Óli Þór Hilmarsson.

Iodine in agricultural products.  The authors are Ólafur Reykdal, Óli Þór Hilmarsson and Guðjón Atli Auðunsson. Ólafur now works for Matís but was previously with MATRA, but Guðjón is an employee of the Institute of Technology, but previously worked there for a long time at IFL.

More about Fræðaþing 2007

It is possible to get up to three times higher prices for live lobsters than lobsters that are sold frozen, according to the episode Krossgötur on Rás 1.

It discusses a so-called lobster hotel in Höfn, which is run by Matís. At the lobster hotel, lobsters are kept alive for a certain period of time from the time they are caught so that they can be sold when demand is higher.

You can listen to a review of the lobster hotel here.

Emphasis will be placed on profitable research projects in collaboration with the business community, according to the Market's interview with Sjöfn Sigurgísladóttir, CEO of Matís ohf. It states that the emphases are to some extent different from those that characterized the institutions that flowed into the company.

It is also stated that an exciting year lies ahead for Matís and a number of prestigious projects in the field of food research. These include projects that are estimated to be able to increase the value of fish fillets here by more than ISK 3 billion a year by fully utilizing fish protein, which has so far been sold as animal feed, says the Market.

In September 2008, a conference will be held in Iceland on the use of NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) technology and magnetic resonance imaging (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in food research. Matís and the University of Iceland will take care of the preparations for the conference in this country.

The conference is entitled The 9th International Congress on the Applications of Magnetic Resonance in Food Science, but such conferences have been held every two years in Europe since 1992. To prepare the conference and get acquainted with the situation in Iceland, two renowned scientists from England. These were Professor Peter Belton of the University of East Anglia and Professor Graham Webb of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Professor Belton gave a short lecture this morning for Matís staff in Reykjavík and presented his research, but he will be one of the world's leading scientists on the use of NMR technology and magnetic resonance imaging in food research.

According to María Guðjónsdóttir, who organized the two men's visit to Iceland, they like the conditions for holding a conference in this country, but the conference will be held in the premises of the H.Í. Continuing Education Institute. next year. It is worth mentioning that Maria was invited to take part in the 8th conference, which was held in Nottingham, England last year.

View slides from Professor Belton's talk. (pdf file)

One of the country's leading experts on the utilization of by-products from seafood is without a doubt Sigurjón Arason, engineer and head of Matís' Processing Department. An article on this subject was recently published in Persian on Iranfisheries.net

The background to the case is that in addition to his work as a scientist at Matís, Sigurjón is a teacher, including an associate professor at the Department of Food and Nutrition at H.Í. and also teaches at the United Nations University School of Fisheries ( FTP-UNU). It was exactly one student of the latter school, Gholam Reza Shaviklo, who translated the article.

The article entitled "Utilization of Fish Byproducts in Iceland" first appeared in the Advances in Seafood Byproducts 2002 Conference Proceedings. Alaska Sea Grant College Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, 43-62.

Gholam Reza Shaviklo is a student of the school in the school year 2006-07, but a total of five students from Iran have studied at the school since its establishment in 1998, and the total number of students is 126 from 23 countries.

Last year, a project was launched to promote increased consumption of seafood, especially among young people. Recently, students at Menntaskólinn á Akureyri and Verkmenntaskóli Akureyrar took part in a consumer survey, which is part of the project. 

Recent surveys indicate that fish consumption in Iceland has decreased considerably in recent years, most notably among younger age groups. It is important to counteract this development, both from a health point of view, as fish is generally considered harmful, but also from an economic point of view.

Although so much fish is exported from Iceland, it must not be forgotten that the domestic market is important for Icelandic fisheries and fish processing companies. Young people today are an important consumer group of the future, so it is important to consider measures to reverse this trend, through targeted education, advertising and marketing. 

The goal of the project, called Attitudes and fish consumption of young people: Improving the image of seafood is precisely to promote increased consumption of seafood through consumption surveys and promotional campaigns. As previously stated, the project began at IFL last year and is expected to be completed in 2008. Work on the projects carried out at IFL and other institutions that merged at the turn of the year will continue under the Matís brand.

Article about the project in Ægi (pdf)

The first report published by Matís ohf deals with research on how cooling speed affects the quality of lamb. It states, among other things, that in recent years, engine cooling in slaughterhouses has increased significantly and cooling in meat is therefore faster than before, which sometimes wants to reduce the quality of the meat.

The report is called Effect of chilling on lamb tenderloin and it states that the speed of cooling has a great influence on the quality of the meat and the cooling must follow the process of freezing to death in such a way that the quality of the meat is as high as possible. Too rapid cooling or freezing of lamb shortly after slaughter can cause cooling in the meat and result in stiffer (tougher) meat. According to Ásbjörn Jónsson, one of the authors of the report, better quality is achieved if you wait to freeze the meat until the process of death solidification is fully completed.

The main objective of the project was to study the texture properties (tenderness) of lamb meat at different refrigeration temperatures and times in slaughterhouses. Temperature measurements were made in dilka carcasses in the slaughterhouse of slaughterhouses at different air temperatures. Samples were taken from the vertebral body dilka carcasses after varying lengths of presence in the meat hall, and they were frozen. Texture measurements were then performed on the samples to assess the effect of cooling on the muscle. The study showed that meat stored in a meat hall and frozen the same day (after 4-5 hours) was stiffer than meat that had a longer cooling time in the meat hall after slaughter.

In addition to Ásbjörn, those who worked on the project were Óli Þór Hilmarsson and Valur Norðri Gunnlaugsson. They all worked for Matra, but started working for Matís ohf at the end of last year. The project was funded by the Agricultural Contracts Executive Committee.

Read the report

IFL recently published a report on the project Thawed salted fish in consumer packages, where, among other things, factors were studied such as how the shelf life of dehydrated cod fillets could be maximized.

As many people know, salted fish has been one of the most important exports of Icelanders since the early 19th century, and even today the export of salted seafood amounts to 15-20% of the export value of Icelandic seafood. Many consumers today do not feel they have the time or interest to spend too much time on cooking and therefore the demand for fresh, ready-made or fast-cooked foods has increased significantly. However, such foods are much more sensitive than salted or frozen and have a much shorter shelf life.

In order for salted fish to continue its market share, it is necessary to be able to offer it dehydrated and ready for boiling / frying. In order for this to be possible, it must be ensured that it has a sufficiently long shelf life as a refrigerated product.

In the new report, which bears the title Thawed, dehydrated cod fillets in consumer packages was drawn attention to, among other things, by examining in more detail the interplay between gas composition, potassium sorbate concentration and citric acid concentration with regard to factors such as microbial and chemical changes, taste, smell, texture, appearance and drip.

The project also carried out shelf life tests on dehydrated, thawed, salted fish fillets after different lengths of frozen storage, and the quality of such fillets was compared with unfrozen fillets. The effects of different raw material qualities on the shelf life of packaged products were also investigated, as well as the growth potential of several pathogens and pointing organisms in gas-packed, dehydrated fillets.

The authors of the report are Hannes Magnússon, Kolbrún Sveinsdóttir, Ása Þorkelsdóttir, Emilia Martinsdóttir, but they all work at IFL's Research Division.

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.