Event on innovative fish product development and processing

On Thursday, 11 December, Ocean Cluster Faroes organised an exciting event on the development and production of fish products at the Boat Museum in Leirvík. About 60 people attended to hear presentations about opportunities to develop products from marine resources and to discuss how greater value can be created from those resources, and how the public sector and research can help stimulate this development.

Unn Laksá, Director of Sjókovin, welcomed the audience. Then Drós í Ólavsstovu, an adviser at the new Food and Resource Centre — established under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Industry and Trade — spoke about the centre’s plans and prospects, and how she envisions it supporting companies in developing new products.

Next, Durita Nielsen, an adviser in the Research Department under the University of the Faroe Islands, presented the Centre’s specific plans to achieve its goal of implementing research and education opportunities aimed at generating greater value from biological resources, thereby promoting further development of the food product value chain.

There were also two presentations from industry representatives. First, Jan E. Petersen from PrimaFisk spoke about his experiences in developing and producing new fish products for domestic and international markets. Jan highlighted, among other things, the opportunities he sees and how he believes the public sector and research environment can support the effective use and value creation of fish products.

Finally, Páll Gregersen from PRG presented their experiences regarding market access and the opportunities and challenges of exporting fish products, using Brazil as a case study. Páll also highlighted internal projects at PRG aimed at improving production and developing new products.

As always, there was an opportunity to ask questions, and much interesting and relevant discussion took place on various topics, including:

• Sales and market access, and obstacles related to regulation, sustainability, various certifications, collaboration with foreign authorities, and more.

• The need to investigate and map existing experiences and to specifically identify what is required to make further progress in this area.

• The impact of high production costs in the Faroe Islands, which negatively affect innovation and product development, and the discussion included the role of the private market and support schemes in stimulating these efforts.

The event concluded with ris à la mande and other treats, along with engaging conversations.