Jeff Sedacca has been appointed CEO of Sunnyvale Seafood Company, the California-based sales division of Chinese aquaculture group Guolian Aquatic.

Former CEO Kevin Tang will assume the position of vice president of sales and business development. He has over 20 years seafood experience, an extensive network of suppliers and customers, and is recognized as an industry leader and the face of Sunnyvale, Sedacca told IntraFish.

“These changes will free Kevin to focus on his core strength of building business and growing and managing sales staff, rather than day-to-day administration,” he said.

In addition, Sunnyvale’s Vice President of Supply Chain, Mike Pashos, has been named the company’s new COO.

Pashos has more than 40 years’ experience in production planning and sourcing and a Master’s degree in supply-chain management.

“The position of COO was created in order to allow administration functions and commercial functions to be separated and apply executive expertise as applicable,” said Sedacca.

“This is a logical evolutionary progression as companies grow, as has SSC, from a local distributor to a trader-importer, and now an integral operating division of a multinational, vertically integrated producer and marketer.” he added.

Sedacca joined Sunnyvale in 2016 as its president. He was formerly president and senior shrimp procurement executive at National Fish and Seafood (NFS), the US subsidiary of Pacific Andes. In June 2019 , National Fish filed for bankruptcy protection. Earlier this year, the assets of the company were sold to NSD Seafood.

At the time of his hire as president of Sunnyvale, Sedacca told IntraFish the company was morphing into being the sales arm for Goulian.

“We are no longer just a trading company. We are actually integrating with Guolian, and we are now the sales arm," Sedacca said. "What we’re trying to do is integrate the companies instead of having Sunnyvale be a satellite company or an acquisition that was never fully integrated."

The vertical integration of Guolian -- which includes feed mills, hatcheries, company owned and contracted farms, and processing -- will yield a considerable benefit for Sunnyvale customers, Sedacca said.

“GuoLian is publicly listed, and is actively pursuing development and/or acquisition of vertically integrated production facilities in Southeast Asia, part of a strategy for GuoLian as a Global rather than a Chinese integrated producer of various seafood products,” said Sedacca.

GuoLian recently invested in Royale Marine in India, and is exploring multiple other opportunities.

In 2012, Sunnyvale Seafoods was purchased by the Goulian Aquatic Group, a vertically integrated producer of both shrimp and tilapia products.