First Water farmed smoked salmon on a shelf in a supermarket in Iceland.
Photo: First Water.
Earlier this month, Icelandic land-based aquaculture company First Water announced the launch of global sales of its sustainable 5 kg salmon for export to international markets, confirming that the entire harvest has been sold to buyers in the United States and Europe. Now, it has announced that its high-quality salmon is also available in stores at home, in Iceland.
Specifically, First Water's salmon is now available as smoked fish in selected stores of the local chains Krónan and Hagkaup. The former is a discount supermarket chain, a subsidiary of the holding company Festi. The latter is a hypermarket chain owned by retail company Hagar, offering a wide selection of food and non-food products.
Smoked in Hafnarfjörður by Reykhúsið Reykhólar, this smokehouse was established in December 2009 by Oddur Vilmundarson and Aðalsteinn Finsen, both of whom have years of experience working with marine products.
According to the company's website, it was created when both founders agreed that there was a gap in the market for a quality product of this type, both nationally and internationally. The company's motto is "Quality and good taste."
Detail of the label on First Water farmed smoked salmon sold in Iceland.
As can be seen in the image above, the product available in stores under the Reykhólar brand also bears a stamp with the First Water brand and the legend "Lax úr íslensku landeldi," which means "Icelandic farmed salmon."
The land-based salmon producer announced that its farmed salmon is now available in stores in Iceland via a LinkedIn post that did not provide further details, so it is not known how much salmon is available or in how many stores it is available.
However, judging by the number of reactions to that post and some of the comments, the product is being well-received. "As an Icelander, I really appreciate good smoked salmon, and this is the only one I'll be buying from now on!" says one of them.
Formerly known as Thor Landeldi, First Water is building a 20,000-tonne land-based salmon plant at Þorlákshöfn, near Thorlákshöfn, in southwest Iceland. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2029, but the total development of the hybrid flow-through facility will be carried out in six phases.
In March this year, the aquaculture company secured EUR 39 million in new equity financing to support its continued development, adding to the EUR 80 million that the land-based salmon farming company had secured in December 2024.