Seafish appoints new chief executive

A LINCOLNSHIRE man has been appointed the new chief executive of Seafish, the fishing and seafood industry authority.

Marcus Coleman takes over from Dr Paul Williams, who stepped down in October and who had helped to bring the 2015 World Seafood Congress to Grimsby.

Coleman started at the Grimsby office of Seafish this month and joins the organisation from Compass Point Business Services where, as managing director, he led a staff of 250 and a client base of more than 200,000 Lincolnshire residents.

While he is new to the seafood industry, he brings strategic leadership skills to the post.

He said: ‘I’m looking forward to driving Seafish forward and supporting its work to realise the ambition set out in the Seafish Corporate Plan.’

He holds a Master of International Business (MBA) from the Ecole Nationale des Pont et Chaussees in Paris, is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, with an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering from Imperial College, London. THE Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC) announced last month that it will be working with the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre to fund PhD projects focused on sustainable aquafeed.

The two innovation centres will provide two thirds of the funding, with the final third to be matched by an industry body as appropriate.

Projects that could be funded include: identification and production of high quality protein sources (such as specific amino acids); identification and production of novel sources of lipids (such as EPA and DHA); identification and production of functional feed ingredients; and identification and production of novel sources of micro ingredients (including pigments).

Applications will be assessed by way of competition and must demonstrate industrial relevance and be of direct commercial benefit to the aquaculture industry in Scotland.

Marine Harvest Scotland announced in December that it is to build an £80 million feed factory in Scotland, and Hadfield will be involved in finding a suitable location on the west coast of Scotland.

The factory is expected to have a total capacity of around 170,000 tonnes of feed, with the potential for further expansion.

See page 32 for more details.