The construction of the Salmon Garden on the volcanic Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland's southwest corner has been ongoing since the end of 2024. The first construction phase will include 22 fish tanks, with a total farming volume of 91,000m³.

Photo: Jón Steinar/Samherji

Iceland's Salmon Garden will 'plant' its first fish next spring

Construction time has increased and costs have risen by 23% but the first phase of Samherji Fiskeldi's 30,000-tonnes-per-year project remains on course

Therese Soltveit Therese Soltveit Journalist & web editor, LandbasedAQ norway

Published October 15, 2026 - 3:27 p.m.

Samherji Fiskeldi is recruiting employees for its "Salmon Garden" land-based salmon farm in Reykjanes, Iceland. The first phase of construction is under way, and the company has set the end of April next year as the target for the first fish stocking.

Samherji Fiskeldi CEO Jon Kjartan Jonsson says work will begin of pahse 2 of Salmon Garden next summer.

"We are on track to start operations in 2027, and plan to introduce the first fish at the end of April," chief executive Jon Kjartan Jonsson tells LandbasedAQ.

When LandbasedAQ spoke to Samherji Fiskeldi a year ago, the plan was to stock fish during the first quarter of 2027. Jonsson explains the adjustment by saying that the construction work is taking somewhat longer than initially expected.

Phase 2 begins next summer

Construction began towards the end of 2024. According to Jonsson, work on the first phase has progressed well.

The first phase will include 22 fish tanks with a total farming volume of 91,000 cubic metres. The planned annual production is 12,000 tonnes in live weight, corresponding to 10,000 tonnes of head on gutted (HOH) salmon.

The facility will be built in three phases, with a target of a total annual production of 30,000 tonnes HOG. Currently, only the first phase is under construction.

"We aim to start construction of phase two in the summer of 2027," says Jonsson.

Cost has risen by 23%

Samherji now estimates the cost of phase one construction at around €290 million. Last year the amount was €235m.

The Salmon Garden is being built on the coast of the Reykjanes Peninsula, and will use electricity and heat from a geothermal power station. The first fish are scheduled to be introduced in April.

“Design costs have increased, and we need more concrete and steel than was in the previous budget. The construction time has also increased,” explains Jonsson.

The investment required has therefore increased by €55m, or 23.4%. However, the production capacity is unchanged, he clarifies.

Pilot plant success

The design of Salmon Garden is based on experiences from Samherji's pilot plant Silfurstjarnan in Oxarfjordur.

“The results we observed there met or exceeded the design assumptions,” says Jonsson.

Testing of the technical systems at the new facility has not yet begun.

Uses heat from the power plant

The Salmon Garden is being built in the HS Orkas Resource Park on Reykjanes, around 50 kilometers from Reykjavik. Here, Samherji will use seawater and heat from the area's geothermal power generation.

According to Jonsson, naturally filtered seawater is collected from a depth of 20 metres, where the temperature remains stable at around 8°C throughout the year.

"We mix this with warm seawater of around 30 degrees from the power plant to achieve a temperature of around 12 degrees," he explains.

The company has previously told LandbasedAQ that access to geothermal heat and electricity from the power plant is an important part of the energy solution.

Recruiting employees

Samherji has begun work on establishing the organisation that will operate the facility.

“Our main priority now is to build up the operations team,” says Jonsson.

According to the company, the first phase will require around 35 employees in fish production, technical operations, harvesting, and support functions.

Jonsson says the facility will have a high degree of automation. Nonetheless, the company has previously estimated that Salmon Garden will create over 100 jobs in the region when fully developed.

Fishing, fish farming, and factories

Samherji Fiskeldi (Samherji Fish Farming) is the aquaculture division of Samherji hf, a vertically integrated seafood company that also operates a fleet of fishing vessels and fish factories.

Samherji Fiskeldi operates six land-based hatcheries and farms for Arctic char and salmon at all stages throughout the country, from spawning to processing and packaging of the finished product. It is the largest producer of farmed Arctic char in the world.