News

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Matís wishes everyone a wonderful Christmas season and a happy New Year.
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The IDF Group at Intellectual Ventures Begins New Collaboration with Matis, a Leading Global Food Research Company
The Invention Development Fund (IDF), part of the Intellectual Ventures family of investment funds, today announced a new collaboration with Matis, a leading food research, biotechnology and marine biology company based in Reykjavik, Iceland. The collaboration will see the Matis team of researchers contributing to IDF's global invention network as inventors, working specifically on various corporate-sponsored Open Innovation projects related to food, enzymes and biotechnology, aquaculture, agriculture, and other areas.
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We want it to become the norm that scientists work with fishermen
‘We want it to become the norm that scientists work with fishermen to conduct fisheries research, and for the fishing industry stakeholders and scientists to be considered valuable partners in the policy-making process,' said Steve Mackinson, from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in the UK, in an interview in the Horizon, EU Research & Innovation Magazine recently.
Read moreAquaculture must increase to maintain worldwide supply of fish
As the demand for fish continues to grow, aquaculture production must increase to maintain the availability of seafood supply and reduce fishing pressure. The way to meet the demand is to farm fish. Fish meal is the dominant protein source in fish feed, but its production is decreasing since better direct utilisation of pelagic fish into more valuable human food products is envisaged with better techniques in fishing and chilling of the raw materials.
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Life history of 186 Atlantic salmons
The origin and life history of 186 Atlantic salmon caught at sea within Icelandic waters were investigated using microsatellites to assess the origin and scales and otoliths to assess freshwater and sea age. The investigation was performed by Matís in collaboration with the Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, the Marine Research Institute, and the Directorate of Fisheries.
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Icelandic companies sign declaration on climate issues
Matís is one of 103 Icelandic companies and institutions that signed a declaration on climate issues in a collaborative venture of the City of Reykjavík and Festa, The Icelandic Center for Corporate Social Responsibility.
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The Seafood Conference Iceland 2015
The idea behind the Seafood Conference is to create a platform for all who are part of the seafood industry in Iceland to meet.
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Matís employee at SAFE Consortium
Dr. Hrönn Jörundsdóttir, Ph.D. in chemistry and project manager at Matís, Icelandic Food and Biotech R&D, has been nominated by the Executive Board of The European Association for Food Safety, SAFE Consortium to be the Administrative Secretary.
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Building Partnership between Universities and Industry
Matís is in collaboration with the University of Iceland, as well with other Icelandic and foreign universities, in order to ensure good partnership between industry and the academic community. The company is working on development and innovation in the food industry, biotechnology and food safety.
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Stakeholder meeting in the Icelandic part of the MareFrame project
A stakeholders meeting in the Icelandic part of MareFrame project has just ended here at Matís. The meeting was held, among other things, to discuss the progress of the Icelandic case study.
Read moreThe Global Bioeconomy Summit
Innovation, growth and sustainable development are the topics of The Global Bioeconomy Summit to be held in Berlin November 25 - 26, 2015. Matís is a direct participant as Sigrún Elsa Smáradóttir is part of the international Advisory Committee.
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Drying and smoking are affordable fish preservation methods
Cyprian Ogombe Odoli will defend his dissertation in food science Thursday, October 22. The defense will take place at the University of Iceland (Hátíðarsalur) and starts at 2 pm.
Read moreNORDIC NEXUS - Nordic connections and solutions for a developing Arctic.
Sigrún Elsa Smáradóttir will be giving a presentation at a breakout session at the Arctic Circle by the Nordic Council of Ministers this coming Friday.
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Forum in Latvia: “Opening and clustering bioeconomy sectors”
Sigrún Elsa Smáradóttir from Matís will give a lecture " Innovation in cross-sectoral bioeconomy" at the Latvia University of Agriculture on Thursday.
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PROMAC: Energy efficient PROcessing of MACroalgae in blue-green value chains
Matís participates in PROMAC, a project investigating seaweeds as novel raw materials for human food and domestic animal feed applications. The project is funded with by the Research Council of Norway, through the BIONÆR (Sustainable Innovation in Food and Bio-based Industries) programme.
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Siggi and his Icelandic Skyr
Mark Astley at the Dairy Reporter wrote an interesting article recently about Skyr, the Icelandic national food. Interesting to say the least and sheds a light on different types of the low fat, high protein content snack foods readily available in US stores.
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CETMAR and Matís set the pathway for an alliance to lead seafood innovation
Matís CEO Sveinn Margeirsson met last week with CETMAR Foundation management in Vigo. Both centres have worked together in several European research projects, as EcoFishMan, Mareframe, or PrimeFish. This meeting has helped them to establish ways of collaboration with the Galicia marine sector, to find common fields of interest and to build the foundations of future common projects.
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Utilization of Northern Cereals - Training offered to companies
A new project will study the utilization of northern cereals. The project is supported by the Northern Periphery & Arctic Programme for 3 years. Participants are from Iceland (Matis and the Agricultural University), North-Norway (NIBIO), Faroe Islands (Agricultural Centre), Orkney (University of Highlands and Islands) and Canada (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador).
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Guðjón Þorkelsson appointed professor at University of Iceland's Faculty of Food Science and Nutrition
Mr. Guðjón Þorkelsson, an employee of Matís, was recently appointed professor at HÍ (University of Iceland). Since 1978 Guðjón has lectured at the University. He studied biology at HÍ where he graduated in 1977, after graduation he went to University of Leeds, England, where he studied food science and attained M.Sc. degree. In addition, Guðjón is a member of the managing board of HÍ´s School of Health Sciences.
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Bioactivity in products from Villimey
Villimey slf produces certified organic products made with wild Icelandic herbs that grow in the untainted nature of the West Fjords of Iceland. The Villimey products were launched commercially in August 2005, a production that has grown year by year ever since. The products have been well received in Iceland and their reputation abroad continues to grow.
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Iceland School of Fisheries - registration closes September 10th

Collaboration with True Westfjords: Dropi Cod Liver Oil
An inside look at our collaboration with True Westfjords!
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Trip to Northern Iceland
Our team set off to Sauðárkrókur to learn more about their community.
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Skagfjordur - Icelandic Destination of Excellence 2015
Skagafjordur municipality has been chosen as Icelandic Destination of Excellence for the project Skagafjordur Local Food (often referred to as Skagafjordur Food Chest) according to Kjarninn, an Icelandic newspaper. Destinations of excellence are chosen in Europe in a European project EDEN, acronym for European Destinations of Excellence, a project promoting sustainable tourism development models across the European Union.
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Iceland School of Fisheries - Executive programme at Reykjavík University
Advanced learning in modern fisheries management, marketing, innovation and processing.
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Eco-labels may bring intangible benefits - XXII EAFE Conference 2015
European Association of Fisheries Economists held their XXII conference on management issues within the reformed Common Fishery Policy, its implementation, and its socio-economic impacts. MareFrame representatives did attend the conference as dr. Anna Kristín Daníelsdóttir, the project coordinator was in attendance.

Your studies are finished; have you found your dream job?

Distinguished visitors at Matis!
The Rector of United Nations University (UNU) Dr. David M. Malone, along with the UNU‘s Vice-Rector and Executive Officier Max Bond are visiting the Training Programmes of UNU that are being hosted in Iceland.

Meet a few of our interns!
At Matis, we're always fishing for new talented scientists to join our team!
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Ocean/River Sampling Day 2015
Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) takes place on the longest day in the northern hemisphere, during the summer solstice on June 21. Started in 2014, on this day, up to 100 science teams all around the world take water samples from the ocean in order to identify the microbes in it.
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Matís aids in the export of fish from the Caribbean

Utilisation of the Arctic Sea Urchin
Nofima hosted the start-up meeting of the EU Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) Program project titled Utilisation of the Arctic Sea Urchin Resource (URCHIN) in Tromsø on May 19-21. The project partners came from throughout the Northern Periphery area including Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Greenland and Canada.
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Matís signs Memorandum of Understanding with Canada-based Marine Institute
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), signed yesterday between the Fisheries and Marine Institute (MI) of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Matís Ltd. will provide a framework for the advancement of fisheries and oceans-related education, training and research and development between Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and Iceland.
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EuroMix project Kick-Off
EU Horizon2020 project EuroMix (European Test and Risk Assessment Strategies for Mixtures) kick-off was held on 20-21 May at RIVM premises in Bilthoven. EuroMix will provide a test strategy for mixture testing based on new and already existing toxicological tests.
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Sampling around Iceland
Pauline Bergsten is a French intern working at Matís for six months. She is currently on an oceanographic cruise with the Marine Research Institute and is collecting samples for microbial and metagenomics studies. She just sent us news about her experience.
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Value Creation in the Icelandic Seafood Industry
The Icelandic fishing industry is important to the Icelandic nation and the country's economy. Over the last two decades or so a significant increase has been seen in the value of exported Icelandic seafood. Yet at the same time the overall quantity of caught fish has stayed relatively unchanged.

Strategies for the gradual elimination of discards in European fisheries
DiscardLess is a new European project coordinated by Denmark's Technical University (DTU). Matís plays a part in the project and recently a start-up meeting was held in Iceland with some of the Icelandic stakeholders taking part in the project.
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The African smoked fish business; ready for industrialization?
In his presentation, Ian Goulding talks about "The African smoked fish business; ready for industrialisation?" Mr. Goulding was in Iceland on behalf of United Nations University Fisheries Training Programme, located in Iceland (www.unuftp.is). The presentation was held in Matís HQ in Reykjavík, Iceland.
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Origin of the species; where does your lunch come from?
In his presentation, Ian Goulding talks about "Origin of the species; where does your lunch come from?" Mr. Goulding was in Iceland on behalf of United Nations University Fisheries Training Programme, located in Iceland (www.unuftp.is). The presentation was held in Matís HQ in Reykjavík, Iceland.
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Silhouette-Of-Seaweed
Matís has received a post-doc grant from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie action which is aimed at providing researchers with necessary skills and international experience for a successful career.
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Money, jobs or food. Who needs fisheries and why?
Single cell protein for more fish
Europe is facing a shortage of protein, protein which is used for animal feeds and other purposes. Alternative protein sources which are financially and environmentally sustainable and do not compete with food production have to be used to compensate for this shortage. In 2014, the Greenfeed project won an award for its efforts to devise a promising alternative to fish feed.
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Reducing seafood surface contamination with chitosan
A project that evaluated the efficiency of different chitosan treatments when used by fishery companies has now ended. The project was a cooperative effort by Primex, Rammi, Fjardarlax and Matís with a financial support from AVS (R&D Fund of the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture in Iceland).

The effects of packaging on food and on the environment – all the answers you need
gave a presentation not long ago on the effects of packaging on food and on the environment. She spoke to us right after her presentation and we asked her to give us the main points in less than 90 seconds!
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Enhancing the economic sustainability and competitiveness of European fisheries and aquaculture sectors
Today is the kick-off meeting of the Horizon 2020 project PrimeFish. The overall objective of PrimeFish is to enhance the economic sustainability and competitiveness of European fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
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Increase the value of convenience food, such as ready meals and dairy and cereal products
is an EU-FP7-SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) project with the main objective to increase the value of convenience food, such as ready meals and dairy and cereal products, by adding functional ingredients, produced from underutilised marine-based raw materials and by-products from fish processing, with confirmed bioavailability.
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New opportunities in geothermal energy for developing countries
New report explores uses of natural heat for food production and processing.
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