This was stated in a speech by Haukur Már Gestsson, an economist who works within the Sjávarklasan, at the Fisheries Conference in Reykjavík recently, and also recently Sigjón Arason, Matís' chief engineer, made a good report on Stöðvar 2's news.
The utilization of cod in the North Atlantic countries is noticeably best in Iceland or 76%, while it is 50% in the Faroe Islands, 45% in Canada and 43% in Greenland. "I believe that the main reason for better utilization here is greater utilization of by-products, and this is undoubtedly thanks to both the regulations and the good collaboration between companies and Matís, but good fillet utilization certainly plays a part. The liver is a good example of a product that is well used in this country. Most of it goes into fish oil and is boiled down. Eggs are also new.
Utilization to increase
The same can be said about heads and bones. Almost all cod heads that arrive here go to drying, as well as a growing portion of cod heads that end up on freezer trawlers. These products are sold to Nigeria. From the attached graph, it can be assumed that utilization has worsened in Iceland since 2009. Haukur says that it doesn't have to be that way. "Care must be taken when comparing the utilization between individual years. For example, a product produced in 2009 sometimes does not appear in the export figures for the following year. It therefore makes more sense to look at the graph over a longer period of time, and according to that the utilization is increasing. On the other hand, it can be read from the diagram that utilization in the other countries has been on the decline. I have no explanation for that."
Norwegians strong
According to Hauks, he did not have good enough data to include Norway in this comparison. "Norwegians have looked at this themselves and according to that their utilization is about 41%, but since they used a different method than I used, you should be careful in comparing these numbers. Norwegians are more powerful than most other nations in exploring the opportunities in by-products, for example with the export of roe and roe to Asia. A special organization was founded there, RUBIN, which received a lot of funding to research by-products, but this organization has actually just closed down today."
Guts and heads are of little use
"I believe that Icelanders should be able to take a step further to make better use of, for example, slag, heads and bones and maximize its value. The head is between 20 and 301 TP3T of each fish, and according to Matís' survey, only a small part of the heads is used if the cod is excluded," Haukur Már Gestsson concludes.
The above article first appeared in Viðskiptablaðið on November 29, 2012. The author of the column is Vilmundur Hansen, vilmundur (at) fiskifrettir.is.
Here You can find Stöðvar 2's news from 19 October. For further information Sigurjón Arason, Matís' chief engineer.