HB Grandi: No summer closures at Reykjavik and Akranes

Full production is planned HB Grandi's Reykjavík and Akranes this summer with students on the payroll to cover the regular staff's holidays. At Vopnafjördur there has been a break in production since the end of the capelin season on the 4th of March, and staff have recently been on their summer break. With herring and mackerel fishing set to start at the end of this month, production should be under way again at the beginning of next month, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to HB Grandi.

According to HB Grandi's production manager Torfi Thorsteinsson, the company's Nordurgardur factory in Reykjavík has taken on 60 young temporary staff for the summer, and there are 25 at Akranes. As last year, there will be no break in production at either location. Magnús Róbertsson, factory manager at the HB Grandi Vopnafjördur plant, said that production will start at the beginning of July and most of the staff have already taken their summer holidays during the quiet period since end of the capelin season. But there will still be an additional workforce of 40 to 45 youngsters working in herring and mackerel production this summer, making the total of students filling in for the company's regular staff as many as 130 this summer.

Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, head of department at HB Grandi's pelagic division, said that the decision had been taken to delay starting fishing on mackerel and Atlanto-Scandian herring until the end of the month as the fish are very thin at this time of year. But they gain weight rapidly and become increasingly valuable raw material as the summer progresses.