Who is your 2010 Food Manufacture Personality of the Year?

By visiting our web site – www.foodmanawards.co.uk​ – you can make your selection from the shortlist below, which has been compiled by the editorial team. Don’t delay, register your vote today!

Paul Lindley, md Ella's Kitchen​

The problem of getting his young daughter to eat vegetables led Paul Lindley (pictured with Ella, above) to set up a company called Ella's Kitchen in 2005, with the ethos of making healthy eating easy for everyone. The company is now on target to achieve a annual turnover of £16M by the end of June 2010.​

Using organic ingredients, without additives or preservatives, the firm began by making two flavours of fruit smoothies sold as snack pouches in Sainsbury. Today it sells 30 products in many flavours. Despite the recession, which has hit many others, Lindley reported that 2009 had been "an amazing year", with sales up by an incredible 174%.​

Recently, the company launched a range of wholegrain oat crackers called Bakey-bakies, aimed at toddlers. This followed a link-up with Reading Scientific Services, which came up with various flavour concepts that would be popular with children of this age group.​

In a letter to The Grocer last month, Lindley responded to a report about plummeting organic sales in the UK. He said: "Sales of our products were 94% higher in the first quarter of this year than the same quarter in 2009."​

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Fergal Leamy, head of Greencore USA​​

The boss of Greencore's new US business, Fergal Leamy, has proved that taking the group's chilled foods expertise stateside was a smart move. Profits from the US operation almost doubled last year, with sandwiches comprising 26% of US sales. Sales in the first half of the year to March 26 grew by 27% compared with the first half of 2009.​

Leamy predicts that sales could rise to half a billion dollars by 2015. While Greencore USA operates from two US sites, Leamy has plans to increase that to nine over the next five to seven years, with sites in the north-east, mid-west and the west coast of the US.​

Leamy took the helm of Greencore USA in spring 2009 after the acquisition of Massachusetts-based Home Made Brand Foods (HMBF). He said last year: "I will be disappointed if we are not turning over $500M in five years. It all depends on how quickly the US market adapts to chilled, but the signs so far are very encouraging."​

Greencore USA currently operates from two sites employing 440 staff between them: the HMBF facility in Massachusetts and a sandwich plant in Cincinnati. With the appropriate investment, the Cincinnati site could turn over $100M and the HMBF site could also turn over $100M, with around $30M coming from sales of sandwiches alone, according to Leamy. ​

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Lise Madsen, founder of Honeyrose Bakery​​

Heading up organic bakery Honeyrose, Madsen is a passionate advocate of high-quality food. She has shown that it possible to buck the trend in the organic foods market, with strong double-digit growth and a new listing in Sainsbury.​

To prove the point, Honeyrose predicts its turnover will rise from £2M to £3M this year and, given its track record to date, that looks highly achievable.​

Madsen has expanded capacity at the company's north London factory, reflecting her confidence in the organic cake market and defiance of the doom and gloom surrounding the sector. Honeyrose, which purchased the assets of London-based Greenwich Cakes after it went into voluntary liquidation last year, transferred the kit to its new factory in Park Royal.​

Sales of the Honeyrose brand of organic cakes rose by 78% in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the first quarter of 2009. It has recently added more new business, including launching several lines in Sainsbury and with other customers.​

Honeyrose manufactures organic brownies, muffins, cookies and flapjacks for the retail and catering sectors, with listings in 400 Sainsbury stores and more than 100 Waitrose outlets. Around 30% of its range is gluten-free, which it sees as a big growth opportunity.​

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Jimmy Doherty,TV presenter and farmer​

With food manufacturing in desperate need of a champion to raise its profile among our young people, Jimmy Doherty, the BBC1 presenter of Jimmy's Food Factory, could be your man.​

Although the TV series in which farmer and scientist Doherty gets behind the processes used to manufacture food and drink does not always make comfortable viewing, it certainly presents issues in a popular way that will have resonance with those who the industry most needs to attract.​

By setting up his own food factory in a barn in Suffolk, Doherty simulated techniques used to make kitchen staples: from corn flakes to sugar. In one programme he tried to turn some of his own farmed pork into square sandwich ham, which involved the help of 100 hypodermic needles, a bicycle pump, a cement mixer, a tin bath and a length of square drainpipe. Other programmes investigated the science behind snack foods, including taste testing.​

Doherty also tried to make potatoes into hoops, twirls and other shaped snacks. He visited an ice cream factory to discover why ice cream can be eaten straight from the freezer and a crisp factory to find out about the 'perfect crunch'. In another programme, he tried to replicate commercial food preservation techniques.​

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Kaarin Goodburn,secretary general CFA​

Few have done more to promote the importance of the chilled food sector in the UK than the Chilled Food Association's (CFA's) Kaarin Goodburn.​

Awarded an MBE for services to the food industry in 2008, Goodburn has continued to be a tireless campaigner for high food safety standards. With a background in biochemistry, applied molecular biology and food science, she is well respected among bodies such as the Food Standards Agency and the Codex Alimentarius Commission. When Goodburn campaigns on issues, people stop and listen to what she has to say.​

She has worked with the CFA since its launch in 1989. She is also a member of numerous working groups and committees in the UK and internationally.​

She has been closely involved in a project called SUSSLE Sustainable Shelf-Life Extension which aims to challenge the scientific basis of the 10-day shelf-life rule.​

This £750,000 three-year research project is looking at the presence of cold-resistant Clostridium botulinum spores in foods. The project has involved the Institute of Food Research collecting food and ingredients samples to analyse spore counts and build a database.​

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Ross Warburton, president of the FDF​

The name Warburton is not only associated with a tremendously successful UK bakery brand, in Ross Warburton it has been the voice of UK food and drink manufacture, as president of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) for the past two years.​

Warburton has certainly taken his responsibilities seriously, giving back much by his vocal advocacy and support for the industry at every possible opportunity. Throughout the recent deep recession, Warburton has persuasively argued the case for the importance of food and drink manufacture to the nation's economy both in terms of its wealth generation and employment.​

In the political arena, Warburton has stressed that national policy must reflect the key strategic role that food and drink manufacture plays in future food security against the combined effects of climate change, higher global demand and increasing pressure on finite resources.​

Warburton has ably headed up an organisation keen to demonstrate its eagerness to work in partnership with government to achieve mutual goals, covering health, the environmental impact of the food supply chain and the transition towards a low-carbon economy.​

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