Aquaculture Innovation Lead

Based in the Scottish Highlands, Aquascot is an employee-owned seafood business employing 190 people from local communities. It is a dedicated supplier of fresh salmon to Waitrose, a relationship in place since 1993, with the organisation priding itself on quality, nutrition, taste and provenance of the food it produces.

Critical to this is the ability to source healthy, well looked after fish and the Aquaculture team is responsible for creating and maintaining best practice within the farming community and selecting only from quality approved “Waitrose Select” farms.

Waitrose values of partnership, trust and understanding are mirrored in Aquascot’s relationship with farming partners with sustainability and ethical sourcing at the heart of a continuous improvement culture, monitored and supported by the Aquascot Aquaculture team right throughout the supply chain.

A new position has been created to work closely with the Head of Aquaculture  to further develop trusting relationships with Aquascot’s key client(s) and farmers. Central to the role will be an understanding of client CSR ambition with regards to sustainability, environmental impact, animal welfare and responsible production agendas, with the individual having responsibility for translating those into a direction of travel within the farming partner supply base.

The individual will be involved in engaging and forming partnerships with research organisations, NGOs, 3^rd party certification bodies and Government regulators where required to promote farming partners’ adoption of suitable innovation to support Waitrose CSR agenda.

As part of this process, together with Aquascot’s farms assessment team, the individual will manage the Waitrose ‘feet on the farm’ assessment program which gathers industry data and promotes continuous improvement. They will be responsible for the production of performance reports and constructing and agreeing new assessment programs with farming partners to support in the development of the Aquascot Aquaculture Hub as a value laden, knowledge based department.

We are seeking to appoint someone who possesses the following knowledge and experience;

• Degree (or above) in biological sciences, aquaculture or another related subject
• Experience of operating in the salmon or trout farming industry (preferably client facing) with exposure to technical areas such as fish health, environment and ecology, animal welfare, sustainability and production
• A track record of managing external relationships with regulators, supply partners, NGOs and most importantly customers
• Strong communication skills and the ability to present complex data in a manner understandable to Aquascot’s senior team and to client(s) as applicable
• A results focused attitude with the ability to plan and deliver
• A natural enthusiasm and passion for the industry with a customer focused approach

For further details please download the candidate brochure.

For more information please send a CV to jamie@fwbparkbrown.com or call 0131 539 7087 to arrange a confidential discussion.