HB Grandi: Production finished last Friday

Production from the 1540 tonne landing by Faxi RE finished last Friday at HB Grandi's fishmeal plant in Vopnafjördur. According to factory manager Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson, this was the last full trip of blue whiting that the company's vessels will have this year and the outlook is now that production at Vopnafjördur will not start again until the end of June when fishing on mackerel and Atlanto-Scandian herring begins, reports www.megafishnet.com.

‘It has been a good season. As well as having done well through the capelin season, this 11,800 tonnes of blue whiting has also been landed here,' Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson said, commenting that the first blue whiting landing of the year at Vopnafjördur took place on April 17th.
The blue whiting that has been fished in Faroese waters is fairly thin and has a relatively low oil yield. But he said that the blue whiting fish meal is in demand and on some markets this light-coloured meal is very much in demand.

‘Customers are primarily concerned with the protein content when they buy fishmeal. Blue whiting is a whitefish, so the meal is significantly lighter in colour than, say, capelin meal. On the other hand, the bone content is higher than in capelin meal, but the blue whiting meal is of just as good quality and very popular across our markets, Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson said.

This weekend the factory at Vopnafjördur will see a major cleaning campaign in progress on all of its equipment before the coming break in production that could last several months. Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson said that many of the HB Grandi staff at the Vopnafjördur factory choose to take their summer holidays in June, as they can expect to be busy when the mackerel and herring fisheries start later in the summer.