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HB Grandi, one of Iceland's top three fishing companies, has announced a value earnings of some 18 billion kroners or 111-million euros for all of its catches last year.
This compares with a total catch value of 91.45-million euros for the previous year.
The company's fleet caught a total of 161,000 tonnes of fish which included some 106,000 tons of pelagic species, including disputed mackerel, and 55,000 tons of groundfish ( mainly cod, saithe, redfish and haddock).
HB Grandi has a mixed fleet of freezer trawlers and conventional fishing vessels and operates groundfish processing plants in Reykjavík and Akranes. The freezer trawlers were the biggest earners at 66.28 million euros, followed by the pelagic fleet at 25.5 million euros, and the fresh fish fleet at 19.19 million euros.
The company says great emphasis is placed on processing IQF fillets and fillet portions of redfish, cod and saithe. The company also produces fresh, chilled fillets that are air-lifted the same day to the European market.
Meanwhile, the company has just announced that, so far this year, about 11,000 tonnes of capelin have been landed HB Grandi’s fishmeal production plant at Vopnafjördur. Some 1,200 tonnes of capelin meal was shipped out from Vopnafjördur at the beginning of the week and although frozen products have already been shipped out this week, this is the first meal shipment of the year.
According to Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson, HB Grandi’s factory manager at Vopnafjördur, production has been going well. All of the capelin landed at the plant is passed through a grading system to separate the fish unsuitable for freezing which is routed to meal production.
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