Whaling company plans iron supplement from fin whale meat

Whaling company Hvalur hf. plans to suspend sales of whale meat to Japan for now and instead use fin whale meat to produce an iron supplement, mbl.is reports.

The powdered supplement will be sold in capsules under the name “Reyðarjárn”, or “Fin Whale Iron”. The company says it could become an effective response to iron deficiency in humans.

Hvalur chief executive Kristján Loftsson told Morgunblaðið that anaemia is believed to affect one-third of the world’s population, with iron deficiency accounting for about half of those cases. The main risk groups are children under five, pregnant women and women of childbearing age.

Loftsson said iron deficiency is associated with both physical and mental illnesses. He cited a recent large Swedish study indicating that iron deficiency during the first half of pregnancy increases the risk of negative effects on children’s neurological development. He also said blood disorders were the third most common illnesses among women worldwide in both 1990 and 2017.

Loftsson argued that the product could lead more countries to consider whaling if people suffered from anaemia while large whale populations were found off their coasts. He pointed specifically to the scale of the problem in sub-Saharan Africa and to large whale stocks off the continent’s west coast.