HB Grandi: Roe freezing for Japan about to start
HB Grandi's capelin production has been going very well recently and roe extraction began last Sunday at both Akranes and Vopnafjördur factories. The roes are judged to be 75% mature, and although this is not enough for the Japanese market, this still makes it possible to produce top-quality industrial roe. The roe content in the capelin at the front of the migration off Reykjanes was around 23-24% early this week and the start of roe extraction and freezing for the Japanese market is not far off, reports www.megafishnet.com.
According to Gunnar Hermannsson, in charge of HB Grandi's roe production at Akranes, roe extraction kicked off last Sunday with production from a landing by Lundey NS. Lundey sailed for fishing grounds again yesterday and was back at Akranes to land a second time that evening with the payload now being stripped of roe. Ingunn AK is also in port, waiting to discharge.
The capelin migration has reached the Reykjanes peninsula, making it a short trip to fishing grounds from Akranes, but leaving a long steam to Vopnafjördur.
‘When there is heavy fishing here in Faxa Bay and of Snæfellsnes, we normally send the excess roe that we can't cope with at Akranes by road to Vopnafjördur, and this year will probably be no different,' Gunnar Hermannsson said, and added that there are now around 80 people working with the roe production at Akranes, including 30 to 40 staff who normally work on the factory's groundfish production lines.
Magnús Róbertsson at HB Grandi's Vopnafjördur factory said that roe extraction and freezing had started there on Sunday evening with capelin landed by Faxi RE. Víkingur AK is now also on the way to Vopnafjördur with more capelin and is expected to dock tonight.
‘It looks good. We grade the capelin to take out the female fish and the male fish are frozen on their own. In this last landing we saw 60-65% female fish,' he said and commented that there are now around 65 people working on capelin production at the pelagic factory in Vopnafjördur.