For a week, our innovation manager has been working at the Icelandic Ocean Cluster, planning future cooperation with the cluster and gaining insights from the number of large and small companies using this space.

Island Amongst other things, he has discussed with the founder and manager Thor and Berta, an energetic pair of can-do personalities, how to move our cooperation ahead. Both clusters are very interested in cooperating through the new cluster to cluster program recently published as a cooperative effort between EEA and EU (Portugal/France) creating new value chains from the catch. Another area we will be investigating is establishing an Icelandic Accel program, and further down the line one may even envision North Atlantic Accel with participation from companies from both coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. There is much to be done to the benefit of both clusters.

Back to the table

As one walks around the table one sees enzyme sprays to fight common cold, salmon leather used to make purses and clutches, cod-liver oil, canned salmon in delicate packaging as well as collagen pills, serums and creams to aid in the eternal battle against aging. One of the least eye-catching but probably the most interesting is a wound dressing from cod skin. The Icelandic company Kerecis Ltd has developed a wound care product that is recently FDA approved. In its final form the value of the product is higher than that of gold the CEO Fertram Sigurjonsson says in a recent interview with Bloomberg.

Fish skin, more valuable than it’s equal weight in gold – imagine the value we are yet to discover in our fish.