Untouched by the world.
Vatna is an Icelandic bioresource company. We raise Arctic charr on some of the cleanest water on Earth, and turn it into clean marine ingredients for nutrition, beauty and longevity brands. A purpose-built farm is in development at Kirkjubæjarklaustur, growing to 5,000 tonnes a year.
A clean place
Arctic charr raised in land-based tanks on Icelandic spring water, filtered for years through volcanic rock before it reaches daylight.
A measured standard
Screened from source water to finished ingredient for the contaminants the industry standards leave out, and built to publish the results.
A bioresource
Omega-3, marine collagen, fish protein and PDRN, supplied to the brands that want a source they can prove behind the label.
Klaustur Charr.
A purpose-built, land-based farm taking shape on the Skaftá, in the far south of Iceland. One integrated site, one source of water, built for a single fish, and sized to grow to 5,000 tonnes a year.
The cloister charr.
Kirkjubæjarklaustur is a small village on the Skaftá river, beneath the Vatnajökull ice cap. Benedictine nuns kept a convent here from 1186, and the charr of this place carries that history in its name: Klaustur Charr, the cloister charr.
We are developing a purpose-built, land-based farm here: a single integrated site with its own spring water, land and renewable power, designed from the ground up for one fish and one standard of water, and sized to grow in three phases to 5,000 tonnes a year.
Land-based by design. Engineered for one standard.
A controlled, land-based system is not only cleaner water. It is a clean process: graded, chilled and handled to food-grade and ingredient-grade standards in one place, so that what leaves the site can be traced all the way back to the tank it grew in.
Spring water
Glacial-filtered, drawn at source
Land-based tanks
Controlled, flow-through grow-out
Arctic charr
Grown slowly, graded, traceable
Processing
Food-grade, ingredient-grade, in one place
Ingredients
Omega-3, collagen, protein, PDRN
Nothing leaves the watershed until it has to. One site holds the source, the fish and the first stage of every ingredient, which is what makes a single, provable chain of custody possible from spring to label.
Groundwork
Permitting, environmental work, detailed engineering, and the first drilling for water on site.
Construction begins
First grow-out tanks and smolt facilities go into the ground.
First harvest
The first Klaustur Charr leave the farm.
Full capacity
5,000 tonnes a year from a single integrated site.
Groundwork has started. The first thing a land-based farm has to prove is its water, so through the winter the team was on site at Klaustur Charr drilling for it, in the snow, ahead of construction.
One fish. Four ingredients the world is short of.
This is where Vatna becomes more than a farm. A charr is not a single product, it is a bioresource. The fillet feeds people. The rest becomes some of the cleanest, most sought-after molecules in nutrition, beauty and longevity, each one traceable to a single farm and a single source of water.
Grown in some of the cleanest water on Earth, under one roof and to one standard, Klaustur Charr yields marine ingredients of exceptional purity and consistency. One species, one site, one source of water, with every gram traceable to where it began.
Vatna develops and supplies these as B2B ingredients, for the brands that want the cleanest, most consistent source in the world behind their label.
Omega-3 oil
Omega-3 pressed from charr raised in Icelandic spring water and grown slowly in the cold. A single clean source from fish to oil, for an omega-3 among the purest in the world.
Marine collagen
Marine collagen from the skin of cold-water charr, grown in some of the cleanest water on Earth. Premium grade, and traceable to a single farm.
Fish protein
Complete, concentrated protein from a cold-water fish grown slowly in pristine water. Consistent, exceptionally pure, fully traceable.
PDRN
A regenerative compound prized in skincare and longevity medicine, sourced from charr milt. Rare, remarkably pure, and traceable to one clean source.
The brands win the shelf. Vatna wins the molecule, and the proof behind it.
Talk ingredientsIn the far south of Iceland, between Europe's largest glacier and the sea, rain and meltwater sink into the lava fields and disappear. The rock holds the water for years. When it rises again it is cold, clear, and carries nothing of the world above. This is the water we raise our fish in, and the water behind everything we make.
Clean is not a claim. It begins as geology.
Most farmed fish grow in water the modern world has already used: coastal currents, busy fjords, river basins downstream of farms and factories. Ours rises out of volcanic rock on the edge of Vatnajökull's watershed, filtered slowly underground before it ever reaches daylight.
No industry upstream. No agriculture. No cities. There is nothing in the water, because there is nothing in the water's past.
The problem nobody puts on a label.
Fish is sold as the healthy choice. The supplements pressed from it are sold as the healthy habit. Yet published research keeps finding the modern world inside both.
The people most exposed are not the people who ignore their health. They are the ones following the advice: eat oily fish, take your omega-3 every day.
Clean is not a claim. It's a measurement.
A clean source is only the starting point. The leading fish-oil certifications test for oxidation, heavy metals and PCBs, but not for PFAS or microplastics, the two contaminants now turning up most often in the products people trust.
Vatna is being built around a single discipline: screen every batch for what the others leave out, from the source water to the finished ingredient, and publish the results.
The product is not the fish. It is the molecule, and the proof that travels with it. Omega-3 (EPA and DHA) is the same compound the body cannot make for itself, and the same compound the modern ocean now delivers wrapped in everything it has absorbed. The advantage of starting from spring water is that there is less to remove, and more to prove.
Bleikja.
The cold-water native.
Arctic charr is the northernmost freshwater fish on Earth, a cousin of salmon and trout, built for glacial lakes and spring-fed rivers. Icelanders have eaten it since settlement and call it bleikja. Most of the world's farmed charr comes from Iceland.
Grown slowly in cold, clean water, the flesh is finer and more delicate than salmon. It is a chef's fish, not a commodity, and a remarkably clean source of protein and omega-3.
“Some places the modern world reshaped. This one, it never reached.”
First harvest 2029. The conversations start now.
Whether you cook with charr, build brands on clean ingredients, partner on the science, or simply want to follow the project as it grows, we would like to hear from you.
Get in touch