Entrepreneur and founder of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, Thor Sigfusson, is on a mission to use 100% of every fish. To illustrate the waste in the fishing industry, Sigfusson filleted a fish on stage during the Iceland Innovation Week, then held up the roughly 40-60% of the animal that is often discarded.
This is not the case in Iceland, where most of the fish is used in various products and industries, including in foods, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and more, Sigfusson told AgTechNavigator during a visit to the Iceland Ocean Cluster.
“Iceland is now the world leader in utilizing the fish. We are now up to 90% [of the] usage of the fish, which doesn’t sound that remarkable, but the fact is — sadly — many nations are using 40 to 60% of the fish. The rest is thrown away,” Sigfusson emphasized.
‘The Silicon Valley of Cod’
Decorated with fish skin lamps and repurposed fishing equipment, the Iceland Ocean Cluster serves as “the Silicon Valley of Cod,” bringing together inspiring founders and entrepreneurs across disciplines to find ways to use every part of the fish and develop services to make Iceland’s fishing industry more sustainable, Sigfusson explained.
The Ocean Cluster is a global model for inspiring sustainable fishing and aquaculture production with locations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Iceland Ocean Cluster houses approximately 60 start-ups and organizations, including Iceland Responsible Fisheries.
One resident of the Ocean Cluster is AI start-up GreenFish, which predicts locations of fish schools, saving fisheries fuel and improving catches, Sigfusson noted. GreenFish’s technology reduces fuel costs by 34% per ton, saving $1.5 million per vessel, according to estimates on the company’s website.
Typically, agrifood tech and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies have a high failure rate globally. However, Iceland is seeing a number of start-up success stories built from the fishing industry, including the country’s first unicorn, Kerecis, and fish collagen-infused beverage brand Collab.
“We are in the real economy. We are with food. We are with canning companies, etc. The startups tend not to fail so drastically. They sort of slow a little bit or just quit,” Sigfusson elaborated. “If it’s biotech, it’s a different story, but many of these [companies] are the real economy, so we have only had around 20% failure rate.”
Is the future of Iceland’s fishing industry indoors?
Iceland is using its resources — fresh waters and sustainable energy from geothermal — to diversify away from open-net fishing, with the introduction of land-based fish farms.
“We have so much water in Iceland, and we can do [fishing] much more sustainably in so many ways than the open nets,” Sigfusson pointed out.
Located near Thorlakshofn in Southern Iceland, Thor Salmon is an indoor fish farm licensed to produce 20,000 tons of fish, with plans to scale up to 40,000 tons, the company CEO Steinþór Pálsson, told AgTechNavigator during a visit to the farm.
Thor Salmon uses groundwater, which provides a mix of fresh water and seawater that has been filtered through lava stones, Pálsson explained. Additionally, Thor Salmon has an automated system for vaccination that “can vaccinate up to 10,000 smorts per hour,” he added.
Thor Salmon has already attracted investors from Iceland and abroad and will need further capital to expand into its next stages, Pálsson explained. The aquaculture start-up is still developing its go-to-market strategy but plans to tap into the growing appetite for salmon in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere.
“This will be the first out of eight phases, meaning that there will be a lot of investment going on. We will need to attract investors. But then at the same time, [this] will be a key industry for Iceland in the future,” Pálsson elaborated.
