Salmon now Iceland’s second highest seafood earner

Farmed salmon has jumped into second place as Iceland’s second most valuable seafood export, the latest official figures show.

But it is still running a long way behind cod, the fish species the country has long been famed for.

Salmon exports are now worth ISK 37bn (£208m) and the figure is rising fast year on year as Iceland’s aquaculture sector expands. This is the highest figure so far recorded.

Cod, by comparison, almost all of it wild caught, earned the country ISK 136bn (£765m), says the industry organisation Radar (also known as the Association of  (Iceland) Companies in the Maritime Industry.

Radar said that salmon is now expected to remain in second place for same years to come as there was no other fish species likely to challenge that position.

It says salmon will continue to grow in both value and volume although it is unlikely to overtake cod at least in the immediate future.

Cod fishing is regulated annually by quotas and is likely to remain fairly static over the next few years. Aquaculture, on the other hand, currently has no such restrictions.

Salmon production is moving ahead at pace. Most of the current producers have been granted production increases and a number of mostly land based projects are either planned or ongoing.

The Radar figures are based on exports for the first five months of this year which show that the export value of salmon on its own accounted for 13% of the export value of fish and 5% of the value of all products, both seafood and industrial.