To keep up to date with the latest personnel changes across the seafood industry, SeafoodSource is compiling a regular round-up of hiring announcements and other personnel-related shifts worldwide. If you have an announcement, please send it to [email protected].
- Argentinian seafood company Estremar has appointed Marcos Osuna Andrade as its new CEO.
“His extensive experience in managing fishing companies and his ability to lead multidisciplinary teams in complex environments positions him as a key leader for the future of Estremar,” the company said in a release.
Andrade worked at Nueva Pescanova for over 25 years before joining the Estremar team, most recently serving as the Spanish firm’s corporate category head of its Argentinian shrimp and wild crustaceans division.
“[I am] honored to be given this opportunity, happy to be back in such a lovely country as Argentina, and eager to work with [the Estremar team] to make the company better and bigger,” Andrade said on LinkedIn.
Andrade is succeeding Alan Mackern in the new role, who served as Estremar’s CEO for over 10 years. Mackern will continue to serve on the company’s board.
- U.S. regional supermarket chain The Giant Company, which operates over 190 stores across the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, has appointed Rebecca Lupfer as its senior vice president and chief merchant.
Lupfer most recent served as the firm’s CFO and will lead all aspects of merchandising, as well as commercial planning and pricing, for The Giant Company in her new role.
“With nearly 20 years of retail grocery experience spanning nearly all areas of the business, Rebecca brings a tremendous amount of expertise to the table, as well as an incredible passion for building strong teams that deliver results,” The Giant Company President John Ruane said in a statement.
Lupfer joined The Giant Company, which is owned by multinational retailer and wholesaling firm Ahold Delhaize, in 2018, originally serving as director of merchandising planning.
- Chicken of the Sea Frozen Foods (COSFF) has appointed Dane Wigand as the new business development manager of its foodservice and wholesale division.
Before taking on the new role, Wigand held the role of national sales manager at Prime Seafood Imports and has held managerial roles in the seafood industry, including at Pescanova USA and Ocean Beauty, for over a decade.
“We are excited to welcome Dane to our team,” Tiffany Hicks, COSFF’s senior vice president of foodservice and wholesale, said in a release. “His deep expertise and extensive experience in the seafood industry are invaluable assets that will significantly strengthen our sales efforts. He brings a wealth of knowledge that perfectly aligns with our commitment to delivering exceptional quality in the seafood market.”
- Fort Pierce, Florida, U.S.A.-based seafood transportation and refrigerated logistics firm Burnsed Trucking has made a few key leadership changes.
The firm has appointed Paul Pointer as its new general manager and Greg Banks as its new chief revenue officer and executive vice president of sales.
“Paul's extensive experience and deep understanding of the industry make him the ideal leader to take Burnsed Trucking to new heights. We are confident that his vision and leadership will enhance our operational capabilities and strengthen our position as a national leader in seafood and fish logistics,” Burnsed Trucking CEO Fred Baedorf said. “Greg's expertise in sales and revenue strategy is a tremendous asset to our team. His ability to build and lead high-performing sales teams will be key to our success as we continue to grow our customer base and expand our services across the country.”
Pointer has over 25 years of experience in the transportation and logistics industry, and he will oversee all of the firm’s operations in his new role. Banks has over two decades’ worth of experience in transportation, mainly through sales leadership positions at J.B. Hunt.
- Kristine Hartmann has been appointed the CEO of the Salmon Living Lab, SalMar’s research center aimed at attaining in-depth knowledge about biological performance in aquaculture operations.
Prior to assuming the new role, Hartmann served as the development director of SalMar Aker Ocean. She will now head up a project that SalMar has estimated entails initial startup costs at around NOK 500 million (USD 47.6 million, EUR 43.7 million).
“Our aquaculture industry is at a crossroads. We have celebrated significant achievements in the past. We have succeeded in bringing large quantities of much sought-after salmon to customers and consumers worldwide. Now, we must acknowledge that we face greater challenges than we have done before,” Gustav Witzøe, founder and Chair of SalMar, said of the new project. “We must realize that there are simply too many gaps in our knowledge. We need to know more about the salmon which is the most important part of our value chain.”
SalMar struggled with biological challenges, which the living lab will aim to solve, at the beginning of this year, including string jellyfish and winter sore challenges. Those issues began to abate in Q2 2024, when the firm turned an operational EBIT of NOK 1.47 billion (USD 139.4 million, EUR 125.8 million) and a harvest volume of 44,100 metric tons.
- Norwegian Mycelium (NoMy), a fermentation biotechnology company based in Oslo, has appointed Erik Tveteraas as its new CFO.
Tveteraas previously served as the head of NuFrontiers, the corporate venture capital arm of Nutreco. In his new role, Tveteraas will support NoMy’s growth journey, aiming to de-risk it as much as possible.
“Having tracked raw materials markets for years and evaluated dozens of alternative ingredient sources, NoMy stood out with clear differentiating features. The feed and farming industries need to adapt to maintain social acceptance,” Tveteraas said.
NoMy, among other initiatives, takes locally sourced food industry side streams and transforms it into high-value ingredients for such end products as aquaculture feed. It also creates sustainable food products from fungal mycelium.
“I’m delighted that Erik is joining the company at a pivotal moment. As a strategic CFO, he enhances our investor readiness and strengthens our ongoing development of symbiotic industry partnerships,” NoMy Co-Founder and CEO Ingrid Dynna said. “His extensive knowledge of the feed industry, coupled with his vast experience in investments, impactful innovations, and partnerships, makes him the ideal choice to support NoMy in our long-term go-to-market strategy.”
- After a three-year hiatus, Gerry Byrne has returned to the position of Newfoundland and Labrador’s fisheries minister.
Byrne served in the role from 2017 to 2020 before Elvis Loveless took over the position for a three-year term.
Byrne reassumes the role at a turbulent time for Newfoundland fisheries. Arguments over cod quotas in the province’s northern cod fishery have resulted in criticism from the Fish, Food, and Allied Workers Union operating in the region.
Additionally, a rift has deepend between federal and provincial fishery authorities in Canada over joint management of resources, with Byrne, just a few weeks back into the position, speaking out about the federal government’s lack of willingness to collaborate with provincial officials.
“The federal minister [Diane Lebouthillier] pronounced out loud that any position taken on fisheries matters of national importance with unanimous agreement of all 13 provincial and territorial premiers of Canada is irrelevant to her department and will not be allowed to be discussed in her presence,” Byrne wrote.
- Sugar Land, Texas, U.S.A.-based seafood company Philly Seafood has appointed Raul Tobar as its new purchasing director.
Tobar has held roles in the seafood industry in Texas for nearly 20 years, most recently as a seafood merchandiser for Halperns’ Steak & Seafood. He also held the position of senior merchandiser at Buckhead Meat & Seafood of Houston for over 15 years from 2006 to 2022.
