Sainsbury’s Aquaculture and Fisheries Manager Ally Dingwall has left the UK retailer to join the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) as its new Senior Director of Technical Operations.
The position is a newly created role providing leadership and coordination to ASC’s standard systems and certification assurance processes.
Dingwall was aquaculture and fisheries manager at Sainsbury’s UK for more than 13 years, and has decades of experience in the wider seafood industry.
He has also been a member of the ASC’s supervisory board for the last three years, where he was closely involved in new developments such as the ASC feed standard.
"Working to expand and improve Sainsbury’s commitment to responsible seafood involved a lot of close work with ASC, whose standards are trusted and respected across the industry," said Dingwall.
"I believe that ASC will play a crucial role in ensuring a growing supply of environmentally sustainably and socially responsible food from the aquaculture industry. I’m excited to be using my industry experience to help achieve that.”
The new senior director role will help to coordinate the activities of the ASC’s two teams charged with technical roles, and Dingwall's retail background will also bring an important market-facing perspective to the role, said the ASC.
The senior director of technical operations will oversee the ASC’s Standards and Science Directorate and the Program Assurance Directorate.
The standards and science directorate is responsible for creating and revising ASC’s standards, and the program assurance directorate coordinates with independent certification companies to ensure the standards are applied properly and that only certified seafood is delivered to the market when the logo is used.
The certification body has been on a hiring spree in recent months. In October it hired former Aldi buyer Lorraine Gallagher as market development manager for Ireland and the UK.
And in August it appointed former Mondelez executive Willem de Bruijn as its new senior director of markets and communications.
