GlobalGAP has announced its new board of industry leaders for the next four-year term.
Since 2001, GlobalGAP committees have been constituted of equal numbers of retailer and producer/supplier seats. Acting collectively the board members are elected to represent the views of their respective membership constituency rather than their individual companies or affiliated associations.
The new board comprises producer/supplier representatives Josse de Baerdemaker, chairman of Brava, Bert Urlings, director of quality assurance at Vion nv, Carlos Perez, president of Marchelot’s Ecuadorian shrimp aquaculture, Juan Bautista Mir Piqueras, deputy managing director of Anecoop, and Richard Yudin, technical Manager for Fyffes based in Florida.
The board’s retailer representatives are Andrea Artoni, quality & development manager of Conad soc.coop, Hugo Byrnes, director product integrity at Royal Ahold, Horst Lang, head of quality assurance at Globus, Stephen Ridge, technical solutions-director for Asda Wal-mart, and Johann Zueblin, head of standards and social compliance at Migros.
GlobalGAP chairman Nigel Garbutt said: "The previous board having fulfilled its term can look back with satisfaction having successfully steered GlobalGAP to a world wide initiative with more than 90,000 certified producers in 90 countries. It has been a challenging time also to reach out to more retailers (now 44 retailer members) as well as non industry stakeholders including governments and non-government organisations who recognise the increasing importance of private voluntary standards.”
He added: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank the whole board and its retiring members Chusak Chuenprayath and Alfons Schmid for their commitment and support without which such progress could not have been made."