Mr David Jarrad

Director

David started his career at a shellfish farm on the River Exe in South Devon in the early 1980’s having studied fish farming and fisheries management at Sparsholt Agricultural College, Hampshire.

During these 25+ years he was Managing Director of River Exe Shellfish Farms producing Pacific Oysters and Mussels within the fertile waters of the Exe estuary, South Devon. He closed the business to concentrate on SAGB matters in 2015.

Having been a member of the association since 1989, a past chairman of the Mollusc Committee, he joined the SAGB Council in 1994. He has also been a Ministerial appointee on the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee and has worked extensively with Seafish.

He was appointed Assistant Director of the SAGB in the Spring of 2008 and became Director in the Summer of 2011.

Miss Nikolett Szabo

Office Manager

Nikolett is an experienced office administrator and has been managing offices since 2013. She studied Business Economics, majoring in Business Management as well as Finance and Accountancy and gained a Master’s Degree in 2008. She also holds an independent qualification in accountancy.

After graduating in Hungary, she moved to London to start her career. In the early years she was working in varied roles as a Customer Service Assistant at market leading companies, she then went on to become a Deputy Manager for William Hill, Soho, Central London.

After years of ‘back office’ administration, she moved on to ‘front of house’ Office Administration in varied roles where she gained further professional skills working at Across the Oceans Imports Ltd, a specialist food import company, and most recently The Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association, a London based trade association (with in excess of 3000 members), where she was Membership Administrator.

Mr Jeremy Simmonds RD, BA(Oxon)

The President

Jeremy qualified as a solicitor in 1967 and practised in London until he retired from 2000. Jeremy became a member of the Association in 1975 and used his legal knowledge to brief speakers of all political persuasions for a day-long debate on the law affecting fish farming in the House of Lords in 1976.

In the 1980s Jeremy worked with Eric Edwards (the Director) on the damage caused to the shellfish industry by anti-fouling paints containing tributyl tin (TBT) until a ban was brought in. Jeremy was elected to the SAGB Council in 1988 and in 2008 was elected to succeed Maldwin Drummond OBE as President of the Association.

Lord Strathcona & Mount Royal

Vice President

Euan Strathcona went, during World War II, from school into the Navy: first as a seaman in a mine-layer: then as an RNVR officer in Motor Torpedo Brats serving mainly from Felixstowe and Portland.

He was made Lord-in-waiting (government whip) in the House of Lords, then RAF Minister; opposition spokesman on Defence and Energy; and Minister of State for Defence. He joined the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers’ Livery in May 1976 and was elected to the Court of the Company in October 1981. He was elected to the Fish & Fisheries Committee in 1984 and served as Prime Warden in 1994-1995. In 1986 he was elected as a Fishmongers’ representative for the Shellfish Association of Great Britain and became Vice-President of the Association in 2009.

Dr. Clive Askew

Vice President

Dr. Clive Askew was Deputy Director of the Association until his retirement in 2008. He has wide experience of oyster, mussel and clam cultivation and has worked both in the UK and many places around the World, but especially in NW Spain, where he ran an oyster hatchery. He was one of the founding members of the European Mollusc Producers Association EMPA.

In recent years he made a special study of global evidence for the health benefits of seafood consumption, reminding people of the historic importance of shellfish in the diet and dismissing the old idea that shellfish raise cholesterol levels. He continues with that campaign and other shellfish matters as a consultant.

Dr Peter Hunt

Vice President

Peter has nearly 40 years practical experience in fisheries management.

His career includes posts as Fisheries Scientist for the New Zealand Government, managing a major freshwater fishery basin in the United Kingdom, thirteen years in Fiji as Director of Fisheries and Managing Director of the State owned fishing Company and tuna canning plant, Pacific Fishing Company Limited (1977-1989), followed by twelve years as Managing Director of Royal Greenland Limited. Peter was previously the Director of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain from 2000 to 2009, and is now retired.

Dr. Colin Bannister

The Chairman

He is a career fisheries scientists who started at the then MAFF Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft in 1964, and retired from it in CEFAS days in 2004. To begin with he worked on tagging and assessing flatfish stocks at Iceland and in the North Sea, but also spent 1976-77 as the first scientific advisor to DG9 and DG14 in Brussels during the formulation of the CFP.

My association with SAGB dates back to 1981 when I became head of the shellfish science team at Lowestoft when Eric Edwards became SAGB Director. I attended the SAGB committees, and became deeply involved with advice to MAFF, SAGB and SFCs on the containment and eradication of Bonamia, lobster management and stock enhancement, the management of cockle, oyster, scallop, whelk and razor fisheries, and projects on gravel dredging at Race Bank and Hastings Shingle Bank, to name just some of the highlights that culminated in the Walne Lecture of 1999During that period I also attended the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in Copenhagen as chair of the Shellfish Committee, and later of the Consultative Committee, which reorganised ICES science in the 1990s.

Since 'retirement' I have returned to the shellfish fold, taking part in a range of MSC assessments of shrimp and lobster fisheries in North America and Greenland, attending the SAGB committees, and writing contract reports on the Shellfish Industry Development Strategy, the National Shellfish Resource Group, and the Management of Brown Crab fisheries, on which I am currently leading for SAGB.

Along the way the SAGB has been kind enough to appoint me as an Honorary Life Member and Council Member, and in 2009-11 I was chair of the Crustacean Committee , and also an honorary auditor.

Mr Alastair Salvesen CBE

The Deputy Chairman

Alastair Salvesen CBE joined Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd in 1980 and is the Chairman of that company and RR Spinks & Sons Ltd and Daniel’s Sweet Herring Ltd.

He is also a Director of the Edinburgh New Town Cookery School Ltd, Deputy Chairman of the Fettes Trust, and a Director of Archangel Informal Investments and of Dovecot Studios Ltd, one of the world’s leading contemporary tapestry studios established in 1912.

A past President of the British Frozen Food Federation and Royal Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland, Alastair has also served as Chairman of the Shellfish Committee of the UK Association of Frozen Food Producers, and has been a member of SAGB for many years and is currently Deputy Chairman.

He was elected a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers in 2001.