Iceland review - 2015, Page 70

68 ICELAND REVIEW
I remember our first day here, when we arrived and I was
standing at the bottom of the driveway thinking ‘F**k,
what are we doing? We don’t know how to do anything!’”
Berglind Häsler recalls of the moment reality of life in the
countryside sunk in.
Berglind and her husband Svavar Pétur Eysteinsson weren’t
completely new to living in the countryside, though—they lived
on the outskirts of Seyðisfjörður, also in the East Fjords, during
the winter of 2008-2009, and in Strandir, the West Fjords, dur-
ing the winter of 2013-2014—and over the past year, they have
gradually grown accustomed to farm life. Following the success
of their vegan sausages, which entered the market in 2013, the
couple are preparing to launch a new food project: oven-baked
chips using homegrown rutabaga (yellow turnips/swedes).
NEW PASTURES
In April last year, Berglind and Svavar, better known as the
keyboard player and frontman in band Prins Póló (one of the
winners at the Icelandic Music Awards in late February: see
page 14) decided to give up life in the capital and try their
hand at being farmers. “We were looking for a new apartment
in Reykjavík. Ours was exploding at the seams—it was way
too small and I was pregnant with my third child,” Berglind
explains. “We could either upgrade by adding a room, which
would have cost about 10 million krónur [USD 71,000] or move
to the countryside, get much more for much less. The decision
was easy,” Svavar adds.
Facing east, with the pyramid-shaped mountain Búlandstindur
rising 1,069 meters (3,507 feet) above the ocean and the sheer
mountain peaks characteristic of the southern East Fjords to the
west, the farm’s setting is a natural drawcard.
However, with the preparations for growing rutabaga, reno-
vations on the farmhouse, as well as conversion of the second
house into a guesthouse, and animal shed into a food production
facility to make the chips, Berglind and Svavar have had little
time to kick back and admire the view.
BLUE-CHIP FUTURE
Looking for a project they could sink their teeth into on the
farm, along with the help of MATÍS (a government-owned food
and biotech research and development company), they created
a recipe for rutabaga chips. “They will be similar to the root
snacks already available on the market but instead be made from
Icelandic vegetables—we’re going to organically farm two hec-
tares (five acres) of yellow turnips, which grow easily in Iceland—
and will be baked, using rapeseed oil, instead of deep fried, and
seasoned with fresh chili, fresh garlic and sea salt. The packaging
will also be different, we’ll use boxes instead of bags,” Svavar
details. Until they harvest their first crop this autumn, they plan
to use rutabaga from a nearby farm.
They hope to crowdfund the project, dubbed Sveitasnakk
(‘Country Chips’), via Icelandic website Karolina Fund. On the
first day, they raised EUR 1,000 (USD 1,085), or ten percent of
their target (by print date they had raised 45 percent with 12
days to go).
With work on the chip factory still underway, production is set
to begin in April or May. “We’ll begin production and see how it
goes. We really don’t know what will happen but hopefully there
will be a lot of demand and then we can expand, like we did with
Bulsur,” Svavar says, referring to their popular vegan sausages
made from Icelandic barley and red kidney beans, among other
ingredients. Also funded via Karolina Fund, they started produc-
ing them for the market in 2013. After the project took off, the
sausages proved so popular that production had to be moved to
a commercial facility in Reykjavík, where they continue to be
made today.
Fun on the farm. The family au pair, Amy English, from Australia is on the left. Sheer mountain peaks, characteristic of the southern East Fjords.
RURAL LIFE