Members of Iceland’s Association of Shellfish Cultivators recently announced plans to begin cultivating the shellfish in Iceland’s waters.
The association has experimented with blue mussel cultivation in Iceland in recent years with good results, and members now feel it is time to start producing blue mussels in large quantities for export. Fréttabladid reports.
Jón Baldvinsson, head of the Association of Shellfish Cultivators, said the conditions for blue mussel cultivation in Iceland are very good. Almost every fjord in the country fulfills the conditions for the crop’s growth, he said.
Baldvinsson said the price of blue mussels has doubled in the last few years. The total yearly consumption of blue mussels in Europe is about 800 thousand tons, and demand is growing.
Baldvinsson hopes that shellfish cultivators will produce 20 thousand tons of shellfish off the coast of Iceland in the next few years, which would deliver about ISK three billion (EUR 32 million, USD 41 million) in profits.
Shellfish cultivation in Iceland has been experimented with and developed for about three decades.
Eight Icelandic companies have involved themselves with shellfish cultivation; the shellfish company Nordurskel on the island Hrísey in northeast Iceland has been the most profitable so far.
