100% SHRIMP
100% Shrimp: A fast-track to circular seafood supply chains in the Nordics
Objective
The 100% Shrimp project aims to fast-track circular value chains for cold-water shrimp in the Nordics. It will optimise shrimp side stream processing, develop cross-border supply chains between Greenland and Iceland, and apply Danish expertise in drying and milling. The project focuses on enabling chitin and chitosan production from shrimp shells, meeting growing market demand and reducing waste.
Context
Despite the Nordics’ reputation for sustainable seafood, large amounts of cold-water shrimp biomass are still wasted. Royal Greenland discards up to 65% of its shrimp catch—primarily shells and heads—at sea or to landfill. Building on the success of the Iceland Ocean Cluster’s 100% Fish model, the 100% Shrimp project aims to unlock the circular value of these by-products and reduce waste across the Nordic seafood industry.
Partners
The project is led by the Iceland Ocean Cluster in collaboration with Royal Greenland, Primex, Nordic Marine Nutrition, SteCaO, and Nofima.
Funding
The project is funded by Nordic Innovation under the Circular Fast Track Initiative
Summary
“100% Shrimp” solves multiple challenges across various sectors and stages of the value chain: For Royal Greenland, a leader in large-scale fishing industry, the challenges include environmental impact and loss of potential value from their shrimp fishery, as well as the lack of standardised processing and infrastructure to access this value. This also impacts remote communities in Greenland, where shrimp products are landed. For Primex, a Nordic Innovation SME, the main issue is the lack of appropriately processed raw material from cold-water shrimp to feed into their supply chain and to meet the growing global demand for chitosan. On a broader scale, “100% Shrimp” addresses major environmental challenges of food supply chain wastage, seafood discarding at sea that negatively impacts ocean trophic food webs and GHG emissions for organic food breakdown in landfill. Nordic supply chain actors at these different levels currently do not have a cross-border model for how to resolve disconnected value chains in the seafood sector, and the dissemination strategy of this project seeks to bring this new Nordic model to the region to fast-track the circular economy.
The aim of “100% shrimp” is to resolve these challenges through key cross-border Nordic collaborations that will enable the creation and streamlining of new circular value & supply chains, activate that supply chain at scale and finally showcase this Nordic model for fast-tracking seafood companies toward waste reduction and circular value creation.