Production of frozen capelin roe has started at HB Grandi’s Vopnafjördur factory, with extraction begun on catch landed by Venus the night before last, with a capelin roe content of around 20%. Further east along the coast, Síldarvinnslan’s factory at Neskaupstaður is also gearing up for roe production now that frozen production for the Japanese market is over.
According to factory manager Magnús Róbertsson at HB Grandi in Vopnafjördur, capelin production is currently a round-the-clock operation. The factory has a production capacity of 40 tonnes per hour extracting roe from the capelin and freezing it, before which they were producing wholefrozen capelin for Japan.
‘There’s a little way to go before the roes reach the maturity that the Japanese market wants, but things are moving fast and we’re hoping that the capelin Víkingur is catching right now west of Reykjanes is going to be perfect for that,’ he said, but declined to be drawn into making any predictions, although there are hopes that the season could last to the middle of the month if the weather holds.
