April 12, 2022

 

Global Seafood Alliance welcomes three new members to Standards Oversight Committee

 

 

The Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) announced the addition of three new members to its 12-member Standards Oversight Committee (SOC).

 

Toby Middleton, head of market operations at the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and Michael Park, chief executive officer of the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, were formerly on the SOC for Global Seafood Assurances, which in 2021 merged with the Global Aquaculture Alliance to form the Global Seafood Alliance. The third addition is a new recruit, Duncan Leadbitter, director of Fish Matter in Australia.

 

The addition of Middleton, Park and Leadbitter, collectively with 75-plus years of experience in wild-capture fisheries, signifies the transition of the SOC from its roots in aquaculture to a comprehensive seafood organisation covering both farmed and wild-caught seafood products.

 

Middleton has more than 25 years of experience in sustainability and corporate responsibility. As head of market operations for MSC, he is responsible for the organisation's global market strategy, working with its 20 regional offices to increase engagement with commercial partners. He has been with MSC for 14 years. Prior to MSC, Middleton held senior level positions in CSR consulting and global environmental policy development with the United Nations.

 

Park has been with the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, a trade association representing 260 individual vessels and 1,400 fishermen, for almost 22 years. He is also chairman of the Seafish, Scottish Advisory Group, chairman of Box Pool Solutions Ltd., vice chairman of the North Sea Region Advisory Council and chairman the Scottish Fisheries Sustainability Accreditation Group. He is also a member of various other industry and government initiatives, including Scotland's Fisheries Management and Conservation Group.

 

Leadbitter has more than 35 years of experience in fisheries assessment and management, seafood sustainability, marine-conservation planning, certification and eco-labelling. He has worked for industry, government and non-governmental organisations. He is a visiting fellow at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong, a trustee of the International Pole and Line Foundation and a MarinTrust governing board committee member.

 

"GSA is absolutely delighted with this triple injection of global talent. Our oversight body now covers wild-caught as well as farmed seafood, in line with the new, comprehensive scope of GSA and the widespread calls for a unified approach to sustainable seafood," said Dan Lee, GSA's standards coordinator.

 

Established in 2008, the SOC directs the drafting of GSA's certification standards by technical committees and reports its recommendations to the GSA board of directors for final approval. Under the direction of the BAP standards coordinator, the SOC also coordinates revisions to the standards. To ensure equal representation amongst the 12 SOC members, four originate from the conservation community, four from academia and four from industry. SOC members serve three-year terms, with a maximum of four terms.

 

Currently, there are six sets of standards in GSA's Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification programme and two sets of standards in GSA's new Best Seafood Practices (BSP) certification programme, the Responsible Fishing Vessels Standard (RFVS) and the Seafood Processing Standard (SPS).

 

The next SOC meeting will be held in Barcelona, Spain, in conjunction with Seafood Expo Global on April 25.

 

- GSA