Iceland fishing company HB Grandi is monitoring Fisk Seafood’s recently installed ice-free system as it mulls over doing the same on its new fresh trawlers.
At the end of September, Fisk revealed at the IceFish trade fair that it was to refit its ship Malmey with a new system so it did not have to have any ice on board, thus saving on costs and potentially improving quality. Earlier that month, HB Grandi announced that it was to have three new fresh water vessels built, with the first set to arrive on Icelandic shores in 2016.
HB Grandi CEO Vilhjalmar Vilhjalmarson said the company had yet to make up its mind on whether to deploy the ice-free system, revealing that they wanted to see how Malmey’s first few trips went. He explained that the ship’s results would likely be published by the end of 2015, so HB could then look at them see if they could potentially make big savings on costs while improving efficiency.
Malmey is still undergoing refurbishment at a Polish shipyard, but will likely be ready to resume fishing with the new technology in January, according to Fisk’s sister company Skaginn’s CEO Ingolfur Arnason.
Vilhjalmarson, whose new vessels are currently being constructed by Turkish ship building firm Celictrans Demiz, admitted that due to quotas they couldn’t increase their volume, so they were looking at the best ways possible to maximise the value of their catch.