Ally Dingwall Joins GSA Board
J Sainsbury plc and GSA are delighted to announce that Ally Dingwall, aquaculture and fisheries manager at Sainsbury’s, has joined the GSA board of directors, effective immediately.
The vision of GSA, which was launched in April 2018, is to create a single platform for comprehensive, full supply chain seafood assurance — farmed and wild — with compatible, block chain-style traceability. All standards in the GSA portfolio will be of the highest quality and governance, meeting internationally recognised benchmarking systems. The standards may be owned by GSA, managed by GSA or working in partnership with GSA. Currently, the focus is on filling the gaps in assurance.
“It’s exciting to see what the future holds for providing assurance at seafood’s point of sale — assurance of environmental, socially ethical, safe, traceable seafood, whether farmed or wild,” said Dingwall. “Sainsbury’s prides itself on being a retailer that is paving the way in this area, recognised as the UK’s best sustainable seafood supermarket for the seventh year running.
“I’m delighted to be working with GSA to help make their vision a reality — developing a single reference point to provide the suite of assurances needed, with compatible and robust traceability,” he added.
Currently, the priority for GSA is the development of Version 2 of the Seafish Responsible Fishing Scheme standards, which will build on the experience of the UK sector and reflect future industry needs across global supply chains. GSA will take over the standard from May 2020. The other priority is the GSA Seafood Processing Standards for both wild and farmed seafood, which are currently being piloted and will soon be put to market.
“The UK retail sector have been leaders in embracing seafood assurance. Sainsbury’s, with Ally, have led that charge,” said Wally Stevens, GSA executive director. “We’re thrilled to have him bring that expertise to the GSA board to help build an organization able to offer a portfolio of credible seafood standards across wild and farmed supply chains. We believe that will benefit everyone from producers and harvesters to consumers.”
About GSA
Global Seafood Assurance is a non-profit organisation that has been created by, and with seed funding from, the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA). It aims to provide end-to-end quality assurance for all seafood, farmed or wild, by creating standards where gaps exist, working with other standard holders where possible, and collaborating to build robust traceability for all. It benefits from 20 years of experience of the GAA and Best Aquaculture Practice standards, together with more than 40 staff and state-of-the-art supply chain assurance technology.
About J Sainsbury’s plc
Sainsbury’s commitment to helping customers live well for less has been at the heart of what we do since 1869. Today that means making our customers’ lives better and easier every day by offering great quality and service at fair prices – across food, clothing, general merchandise and financial services – whenever and wherever they want to shop.
As our customers’ lives change, so will our business. Sainsbury’s acquired Home Retail Group, the owner of Argos and Habitat, on 2 September 2016, creating one of the UK’s leading food, general merchandise and clothing retailers – a multi-product, multi-channel business with fast delivery networks. J Sainsbury plc operates over 600 Sainsbury’s supermarkets, more than 800 Sainsbury’s Local convenience stores and over 800 Argos locations – almost 2,300 locations in total. In addition, we have online channels for food, clothing, general merchandise and financial services. We sell over 90,000 products and employ over 185,000 colleagues across the UK and Ireland. The iconic Habitat furniture and home furnishings brand operates out of five stand-alone stores in London, Leeds, Brighton and Edinburgh as well as 12 Mini Habitats in Sainsbury’s supermarkets.
Sainsbury’s Bank offers accessible financial services products such as credit cards, insurance, travel money, mortgages and personal loans that reward customers.
Our vision is to be the most trusted retailer where people love to work and shop. Our colleagues, strong culture and values are integral to achieving this vision and driving our success — now and in the future.
