Last year at this time, I was attending a National Seafood Marketing Coalition session at the Boston Seafood Expo at which Thor Sigfusson was speaking about the superior utilization of fishery byproducts his Icelandic business incubator is doing with Scandinavian cod.

The presentation was compelling to say the least. It seemed appropriate that the Alaskans (those who started the coalition) would have been introducing Sigfusson and his group’s remarkable work. Whitefish provides Alaska’s biggest landings, between pollock and cod. And as a region, they are known to be a forward-thinking faction of the industry, as well as one with close ties to Scandinavia.

But what makes even more sense, and what is taking place this year, is that Sigfusson is meeting with representatives of the Northeast groundfish industry in New Bedford tomorrow.

The Iceland Ocean Cluster now claims nearly 95 percent utilization of each cod plucked from their waters. That includes rendering 25 percent of the fish’s value from fillets and then digging far deeper to extract cod liver oil, roe for caviar, intestinal enzymes for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, the skin for fashion accessories (think fish leather), and the list goes on.

We may not have access to significant landings of cod in the Northeast, but we have plenty of room to improve what we get out of those fish.