Iceland's tourism boom has a fishy by-product
NOVEMBER 15, 2018
By: Jemima Kelly in Reykjavik
If Britain hadn’t lost to Iceland in each of the three bilateral “Cod Wars” between 1958 and 1976, Tomas Thor Eiriksson wouldn’t be in business.
Since then, the white demersal fish native to the Atlantic has been one of Iceland's most important exports, and the UK one of its biggest consumers. Most of the Icelandic cod going to Britain is the frozen variety, to be breaded or battered for sale in fish and chip shops up and down the country and supermarket freezers in, er, Iceland.
But the huge growth in tourism since 2000 -- and therefore in the number of passenger flights -- has meant that Iceland has been able to export an increasing amount of fresh fish (most boat journeys are too long to keep the fish from going off). It can be sold to wholesalers and fancy supermarkets like Waitrose, at a premium -- air freight is about four times as expensive as sea freight:
