ASSG Conference Programme— 1

The Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers Annual Conference

Corran Halls, Oban

26-27 October 2017

The ASSG is extremely grateful for the generous sponsorship of the conference by Crown Estate Scotland and co-sponsorship from Seafish and Marine Scotland. Without this support the conference would not be possible. Highlands and Islands Enterprise have kindly provided the prizes for the competition for ‘Best Scottish Shellfish’ and this is also very much appreciated.

Programme

“Scottish Cultivated Shellfish – New Horizons”

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Day 1 October 26th

11:30

Open for Delegate Registration (Trade stands and discussions)

12:00 Conference welcome Nick Lake ASSG

Conference Opening 12:10

Fergus Ewing MSP Minister for the Rural Economy and Connectivity

12:30 Best Scottish Shellfish Competition

(Start of judging) Awards sponsored by HIE

12:45 - 14.10 Buffet Lunch

Conference Session 1 The Business Drivers

14:15 - 14.45 “Consumer expectations of shellfish”

Ally Dingwall – Aquaculture and Fisheries Manager, Sainsbury’s plc

14:45 – 15:15 “Critical mass evaluation of Scottish shellfish production – research findings”

Rod Cappell, Poseidon Aquatic Resource Management Ltd

15:15 - 15:40 Tea / Coffee

Conference Session 2 The International Perspective

15:40 - 16.15 “Rapid testing to optimise shellfish safety”

Andrew Holmes - Neogen Europe

16:15 - 16:50 “Oyster production in the Gulf of Mexico and regulatory controls”

Andy DePaola - Oyster producer and Ex-USFDA

16:50 - 17:45 Tea / Coffee

Trade stands and discussions

17:15 - 17:45 ASSG AGM for members

19:00 for 19.30

Annual Dinner Fishouse Restaurant The Railway Pier, Oban

+ Award winners announced! Competition awards sponsored by HIE

Speaker biographies Ally Dingwall is Aquaculture and Fisheries Manager at

Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd and is a member of Sainsbury’s Agriculture Team with responsibility for cross-category fish sourcing policy.

Ally qualified with a degree in Marine Biology from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh and has over 30 years’ experience in the fish and seafood industry. He has worked in a variety of technical and production roles including farms, health and technical management at Marine Harvest in Scotland, global technical procurement at Pinneys of Scotland and Uniq plc and in operations management at Huon Aquaculture in Australia prior to joining Sainsbury’s in 2008. He represents Sainsbury’s within a number of fora including Fisheries Innovation Scotland, Scottish Seafood Partnership, Aquaculture Stewardship Council, IFFO RS, Fishing into the Future, Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative, Sustainable Seafood Coalition and Global Ghost Gear Initiative. He also sits on the Scottish Food Commission. In 2016 he was awarded the Seaweb Seafood Champion award for leadership in the field of sustainable fish and seafood.

Rod Cappell is a director of the fisheries and aquaculture consultancy, Poseidon. He is based in Northern Ireland after nearly 20 years living and working in Edinburgh. Following his degree in marine biology from Liverpool, his

post-graduate studies then focused on marine resource management and economics.

Rod has worked on a variety of aquaculture development projects, including a techno-economic feasibility study of Aquaculture Parks in Uganda and sustainable shrimp culture in Bangladesh and Vietnam. His work in Scotland includes an analysis of the competitiveness position of Scottish salmon and he recently undertook the independent review of aquaculture consenting for Marine Scotland and the Crown Estate. He is a Marine Stewardship Council auditor and has certified several mussel fisheries, including Scottish mussels (recently re-certified!). He is currently working with a Chinese clam culture company to review performance and implement environmental improvements.

Rod will present findings from research that he carried out with Peter Tarant of Maritek for Crown Estate Scotland, which developed a farm production model to explore critical mass of operations and the potential for collaborative working within Scottish lochs.

Andrew Holmes is Division Manager – Production & Contract Services at Neogen Europe, with a team of 51 staff. He has worked for Neogen Europe since 1998 and since 2009 has built and led the Production & Contract Services Division from 6 to 51 staff, including the successful integration of 3 key acquisitions and development of a genomic testing service. He has held several previous positions within the company including sales and marketing, business development, product management and materials/purchasing.

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His area of expertise is environmental microbiology and human health. Carlos has been actively involved in delivering science and evidence to UK Government and has published widely on the fate and behaviour of human norovirus in the marine environment; factors affecting the microbial quality of shellfish; sanitary surveys of shellfish production areas; and impacts of stormwater discharges in coastal waters. In his talk, he will explore how satellite Earth observation and simple environmental modelling tools can be used to monitor and forecast water quality for shellfish aquaculture.

Sarah Brown has been at the forefront of developing practical and pragmatic approaches to tackling marine INNS including developing the ‘Marine Biosecurity Planning – Guidance for Producing Site and Operation-based Plans for Preventing the Introduction of Non-native Species’ which was formally adopted by SNH and accepted as case work guidance by NRW, DoE NI and NE. Sarah has been significantly involved with the UK’s Marine Pathway Project including the delivery of biosecurity training for ports and marinas throughout the UK and the writing of guidance, templates and biosecurity plans for the majority of the larger marina groups. She was also project manager for the biosecurity plans for the Tamar and Humber estuaries and the South Devon AONB. She has

Day 2 October 27th 08:45 Trade stands and discussions

09:10 - 09:15 Conference welcome

Nick Lake, CEO ASSG

Conference Session 3 Working with Environmental Challenges

09:15 - 09:35 “Satellite tracking of algal blooms and water quality”

Carlos Campos – ShellEye Project, CEFAS

09:40 - 10:00 “Biosecurity planning for multiple stakeholders – the Loch Creran experience”

Sarah Brown - c2w – Marine Resource Consultants

10:05 - 10:25 “Environmental variables and mussel stocks”

Kati Michalek - CACHE Project / SAMS

10:25 - 10:50 Tea / Coffee

Conference Session 4 Scottish Initiatives

10:50 - 11:15 “Blue mussel – pilot hatchery developments”

Michael Tait and Danny Cowing – NAFC, Shetland

11:20 - 11:40 "Scottish shellfish innovation - SAIC project updates and latest funding

opportunities" Robin Shields and Don Fowler SAIC

11:45 - 12:05 “Research support and industry development”

Andrew Rowley - ARCH UK

12:10 - 12:30 “Promotion of Scottish shellfish” Donna Fordyce – Seafood Scotland

12:35 - 12:55 “The Aquaculture Industry Leadership Group”

Stewart Graham, Chair - Scottish Aquaculture Industry Leadership Group (AILG)

13:00 - 13:05 Conference closing remarks

Nick Lake - ASSG

13:10 - 14:30 Buffet Lunch

14:30 Conference close

Andy DePaola is retired from USFDA as the Lead Seafood Microbiologist after 37 years and currently operates an oyster farm in Mobile Bay Alabama. He established a world class research programme at the Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory focusing on pathogenic Vibrio in seafood. He authored over 100 journal publications, numerous book chapters and international risk assessments. He developed molecular pathogen detection approaches and transferred this technology to the food safety community, greatly reducing analytical times from weeks to hours. He investigated outbreaks and epidemics globally and contributed to impactful discoveries including the first Vibrio parahaemolyticus pandemic and seasonal and geographic expansion of vibriosis resulting in warm water anomalies. He ended his career as the USA coordinator of Vibrio policy and his initiatives significantly strengthen the cooperative shellfish safety programme. He began growing oysters recreationally from his pier in 2013 and became a commercial grower in 2017 and is establishing a Pier Growers Coop. He recently invented the shellevator which pneumatically automates transport of shellfish from the seafloor to above the sea surfaces and provides seamless portability to escape hazards to shellfish or human health. He is also a food safety consultant advising industry, prominent universities and international organizations.

Carlos Campos is a Water Quality Scientist in the Aquatic Health and Hygiene Division at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS).

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developed the community-led Loch Creran Biosecurity Plan and subsequently is still engaged by Marine Scotland to facilitate delivery of the associated Action Plan. Sarah advises the Scottish Government’s Marine INNS working group and the Marine Pathways Project.

Kati Michalek is a postgraduate student at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban. Her PhD work is part of the pan-European project `CACHE` (Calcium in a Changing Environment, www.cache-itn.eu) bringing together researchers and industry from 6 European countries to investigate the overall performance and shell production of 4 commercially important shellfish species in times of changing climate conditions.

Within CACHE, Kati focuses entirely on the cultivation of blue mussels in Scotland. By using their cultivation habitat (sea lochs) as natural experimental set-up, she examines how mussels respond to variable environmental culture conditions, and describes the underlying genetic diversity in association with relevant product traits (e.g. shell strength). Her work is closely linked with the local mussel industry and provides management guidance to support the selection of optimal culture habitats. She was awarded this year’s LANTRA `Learner of the Year` for Higher Education award, and the SAMS `Johanna Fehling Memorial prize`.

Michael Tait has been working in aquaculture since graduating from Heriot-Watt University in 1998 with an engineering degree. After gaining experience in the salmon sector and as a graduate trainee at the North Atlantic Fisheries College he was appointed Shetland Area Manager for the international Salmon Farming company Cermaq in 2000. He worked throughout Scotland over 7 years, latterly holding the post as Managing Director. In 2007 he returned to the family business to help the company grow the shellfish business from under 500 tonnes p.a. to over 2400 tonnes last season. He is currently the Chairman of the Scottish Shellfish Marketing Group, a board member of the Scottish Aquaculture Industry Leadership Group and Chairman of the Stepping Stone Hatchery Project (SSHP) which is exploring whether a commercially viable solution to hatchery reared mussel spat can be secured.

Daniel Cowing is the Project Officer for the SSHP. Daniel has a BSc (Hons) in Coastal Marine Biology from the University of Hull and MSc in Tropical Coastal Management from Newcastle University. He is completing his PhD studies in Hull on rearing Nephrops but is on secondment to this project because of his extensive experience with larviculture.

Robin Shields, Aquaculture Innovation Manager at the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC), will provide an update on the progress being made at Scotland’s pioneering £1.7m pilot mussel hatchery in Shetland: the key challenges, learnings and next steps. Robin gained a PhD in marine biology from the University of Wales Bangor in 1990 and has more than 25 years of experience in applied aquaculture research and

technology development, specialising in marine hatchery. Having previously worked for Seafish UK, The Oceanic Institute and Swansea University (Director of Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture Research), Robin joined the SAIC team as an Aquaculture Innovation Manager in May 2016.

Don Fowler, fellow Aquaculture Innovation Manager will be joining his colleague Robin to talk about the new £1m match-funding programme, Accelerating Aquaculture Innovation, underway in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and how it could help the region’s many aquaculture SMEs to commercialise innovative new processes, products, approaches or technology.

Don was most recently a senior business development manager with Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and is a graduate of the University of Glasgow in Aquatic Bioscience. Donald has over 20 years’ experience in aquaculture and marine economic development.

Andrew Rowley is a professor in the Department of Biosciences, Swansea University. He was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire but has spent most of his adult life living and working in South Wales. His research interests include aquaculture development and the ecology of aquatic diseases with particular reference to crustaceans. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers together with several books. Andrew currently sits on the Science Advisory Group of SeaFish and is one of the leads in ARCH-UK.

Donna Fordyce has recently joined Seafood Scotland as an Industry Engagement Specialist. Donna has an honours degree in Business Administration and has worked within Business Development for the past 15 years with Business Gateway and latterly Scottish Enterprise. Donna has worked within Food & Drink with a sector remit of seafood for Scottish Enterprise for the past 6 years working closely with seafood companies across Scotland. Donna has been an observer on the Seafood Scotland Board, a member of the working group for Scottish Seafood Partnership and PAC member for the EMFF fund.

Stewart Graham as Co-Chair of the Scottish Aquaculture Industry Leadership Group (ILG) and owner / MD of Gael Force Group, is credited with being the driving force behind Scottish Aquaculture Growth Strategy to 2030. His resolve to gain support and commitment to the industry from the Scottish Government, as well as all stakeholder support for its strategy, has helped place Scottish Aquaculture on the focused path towards growth. His company Gael Force Group is the largest Scottish SME manufacturing and supplying equipment, technology and services to the Scottish Aquaculture industry, with a staff number close to 200, and a 35 year history in marine equipment supply.