Icelandic shareholder warmly welcomed in first visit to Grimsby Fish Market since pandemic

A founding shareholder in Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises has endorsed the direction the organisation is now taking in his first visit since Covid halted global travel.  

Icelandic national Petur Bjornsson founded Isberg Ltd back in the mid-Eighties, supplying North Atlantic catch into both the old and new markets – with the need for the latter the reason GFDE was formed.  

Having first arrived on the Humber as an agency manager for J Marr and Son in 1981 - looking after Icelandic fishing vessels and latterly container landings - he remained in the UK until 1997, and still retains professional and personal ties with both Grimsby and Hull.

As one of the nine original shareholders, with five still remaining, he has been part of the board that has just elected a new chair and appointed a new chief executive, in Simon Dwyer and Andrew Oliver.

“I used to come across regularly for board meetings, then came Covid, and now this is my first visit for six years,” he said, having attended meetings via Teams after the outbreak and subsequent series of lockdowns rapidly advanced the adoption of communications technology.

To mark his visit he was given a tour of the GFDE estate, with the organisation driving development of Port of Grimsby East, Offshore Training Centre – Grimsby and Grimsby Shipyard Services, as well as the market operations and sales.  

“Renewables are becoming an ever-bigger area for development, and there is now more space within the fish market being rented out, attracting more business onto the site,” he said. “I don’t see how the fishing side could increase significantly, that is more about consolidation, but the offshore side is growing and already doing quite well. That’s where the future lies. 

“I am looking forward to the new era, and I am very happy with the recent changes in management.” 

Reflecting on the differences in the 30 years the ‘new’ market has been open - an anniversary celebrated ahead of the Easter fish sales spike - Mr Bjornsson said: “When this market was built it still operated in a very old-fashioned way, as the methods were just brought across from what had happened elsewhere on the docks. There wasn’t any grading equipment, and the weighing of fish wasn’t very accurate. That has now changed, we have the equipment and it remains an important operation.”

When he returned to Iceland, Mr Bjornsson launched a commercial fishing gear business, which he sold a few years back, and he remains a silent partner alongside his brother in a commercial fishing company his grandfather started in 1949.

Fellow remaining shareholders in GFDE are North East Lincolnshire Council, represented by Maggie Johnson; Grimsby Fishing Vessel Owners Association, represented by Andrew Allard; Grimsby Fish Merchants’ Association, represented by Simon Dwyer and the Flear family, represented by David Flear.