It’s almost ten years since Icelandic fishing and processing giant Síldarvinnslan acquired processor Brimberg in the east coast port of Seyðisfjörður, and its trawler Gullver, with a pledge to keep production and employment unchanged.
But times change… Now Síldarvinnslan has announced that the former Brimberg groundfish production plant is to shut down at the end of November, with the loss of an estimated 30 jobs. The company’s fishmeal production in the port will continue its operation.
According to the company, the groundfish processing environment has changed substantially as costs have risen, financing is more costly and cod quotas have been reduced, while the plant in Seyðisfjörður also requires significant investment to bring it up to a level at which it becomes comparable to the more modern processors – such as the Vísir factory in Grindavík, which Síldarvinnslan acquired recently.
Síldarvinnslan states that the Seyðisfjörður plant is too small to make such an investment running to hundreds of millions of ISK realistic, and the clear trend is towards larger and more versatile processing operations.
None of the crew of Gullver, which has supplied the Seyðisfjörður factory, are to be made redundant, although the expectation is that the trawler will be making landings over a wider variety of ports in future as its operating pattern is set to change.
