Kate Taylor, ABP
Kate Taylor is apprenticeship & early careers manager at ABP UK, with almost a decade of experience across the food industry including roles at six years at dairy manufacturer Ornua.
She began her career in the dairy sector before moving into the meat industry in 2023, and now lead apprenticeships and early careers programmes nationally, working closely with operational teams, training providers, and education partners.
Taylor is passionate about skills development, social mobility, and championing alternative routes into work. A key part of her role is challenging outdated perceptions of the food industry and showcasing it as a modern, diverse, and rewarding career choice. She works extensively with schools, colleges, and industry partners to create meaningful opportunities through apprenticeships, work experience, and more recently, offering T Level industry placements.
Alongside her role at ABP, she is actively involved in the Department for Educations T Level and Apprenticeship Ambassador Networks, as a multi-regional ambassador and over the years, she has also played a role in the Career and Enterprise Company as an enterprise advisor, helping young people to find their next best step.
However, most importantly, when it comes to championing the food industry, Taylor takes great effort to help inspire the next generation. To this end, Taylor helped support the Government Kickstart Programme during Covid-19 which saw a candidate progress onto winning the Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce Young Person of the Year Award.
“I just love to help open doors for young people who may not have previously considered a career in food and I’m driven by helping build a strong, inclusive future workforce for the sector that has shaped my own career,” she told Food Manufacture.
Emma Heal, Lucky Saint
Emma Heal is the managing director of well-known alcohol-free beer brand Lucky Saint.
She has worked in consumer goods for 25 years across Europe and Africa including roles at the likes of Tesco and Diageo, alongside fledgling brands which have grown into household names, such as innocent drinks and Graze. As Heal told Food Manufacture, it’s the world of scaling category-defining start-ups that she loves, and the reason she joined the founder of Lucky Saint Luke Boase as its managing director in February 2020.
Heal moved from across to Lucky Saint from her role as MD of Graze’s retail business, where she led the launch from ‘clicks to bricks’.
“It was a brilliantly intense few years building a wonderful team of 40, to create a £50 million retail revenue business, and reaching the heights of the UK’s biggest healthy snacking brand,” she said.
“Health and wellbeing have always been a passion of mine and coupled with a love of working within dynamic exploding categories, I saw fantastic potential in the alcohol-free space, which led me to Lucky Saint. I was incredibly impressed listening to the founder Luke Boase talk passionately about his two-year journey to create the world’s best alcohol-free lager.
“I was delighted to join the team as managing director in February 2020 to help scale a wonderful beer and brand.”
Lucky Saint is now the leading independently owned alcohol-free beer in the UK, listed in over 70 Michelin star restaurants, as well as more than 7,000 UK institutions like Honest Burgers and The Ivy Collection.
“It is an exciting time to be leading the ever-increasing brilliant team and pushing full steam ahead to achieve our ambitious growth plans,” she added.
Alongside her MD role at Lucky Saint, Heal also sits on the British Beer and Pub Association board which represents companies that brew over 90% of the beer produced in the UK and own approximately 20,000 of the country’s pubs. Founded in 1904, the trade body advocates for the beer and pub sector, influencing policy, taxes, and regulations.
She is part of the advisory group for the Government’s Hospitality Sector Council, a collaborative forum in the UK, established in 2021 to facilitate cooperation between the government and the hospitality industry. It focuses on driving the recovery, resilience, and growth of the sector following the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting the delivery of the national Hospitality Strategy.
Heal is also the chair of the Family Business and Independent forum, a Freeman of the City of London, a member of The Worshipful Company of Feltmakers, and volunteers for Inspiring the Future.
Jayne Mizon, Kepak Group
Jayne Mizon has spent more than 22 years building her career at Kepak, shaping her professional journey alongside the evolution of the business. Starting in the early 2000s, she has grown through a variety of roles across the organisation, always driven by a genuine interest in people, culture, and helping colleagues to develop and succeed. She is currently Kepak Group’s HR and development director.
A particularly meaningful milestone for Mizon was the work she completed during her Master’s studies, where she led extensive employee focus groups and surveys that unearthed the core values already lived within Kepak. These values, now woven into everyday life across the company, reflect what matters most to Kepak’s people and what the organisation collectively stands for. Her work brought clarity, language, and structure to these shared principles, laying the groundwork for many of the initiatives she later supported in learning and development.
In her time within L&D, Mizon played an important role in introducing the success factors framework and refining Kepak’s enhancing performance process to make it more supportive, developmental, and focused on driving business performance. Her focus has always been on creating practical tools that help people understand their strengths, contribute meaningfully, and feel confident in their own growth.
Mizon has also been a strong champion of talent development across Kepak, coaching, mentoring, and equipping both individuals and leaders with the skills, confidence, and structures needed to build great teams and make Kepak, and the wider industry, a great place to work.
Alongside this, she has demonstrated exceptional breadth in her HR career, contributing strategically and operationally across HR operations, talent development, succession planning, organisational development, and values. More recently, she helped lead Kepak’s organisation design work, contributing to a structure and approach that will support the business to be more adaptable and future focused.
Beyond Kepak, Mizon is committed to supporting the wider industry, particularly in creating more opportunities for women in operational roles. She has contributed to Meat Business Women’s ‘Women in Operations Launchpad’ programme and participated in ‘Diversity in Grocery’ initiatives through GroceryAid. Whether speaking on panels, mentoring, or sharing her experience, she aims to give back in ways that support the next generation coming into the industry.
Throughout her career, what Mizon values most is the chance to help people feel supported, capable, and able to thrive, something she continues to prioritise in every role.
Outside of work, she is a mum to two boys, aged eight and three.
“Balancing family and career is an important part of my story, and my children are a constant source of motivation, perspective, and joy,” she said.
Katie Major, Danish Crown
Katie Major is an award-winning leader in the food manufacturing and agricultural supply chain, bringing over a decade of experience across sustainability strategy, agricultural best practice, and commercial account leadership. Recognised for her dynamic leadership style and ability to drive meaningful change, she operates at the intersection of agriculture, retail, and sustainability – delivering impact from farm to fork.
Within her newly appointed role as head of procurement operations and sustainability at meat processor, Danish Crown, Major leads strategic procurement and sustainability delivery across the UK business. Her remit spans operational performance, supplier engagement, carbon reduction strategy, and agricultural sustainability programmes.
Prior to this she served as senior sustainability and agriculture manager within the business, developing and implementing a UK-wide sustainability roadmap across several sites, including setting measurable net zero commitments. During her time at the business she has led on green training, embedding and upskilling the team in emissions reduction, alongside championing regenerative agriculture principles.
Major has managed senior relationships with many of the UK’s leading retail and foodservice brands, including Tesco, Lidl, McDonald’s, Greggs, ASDA, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Co-op, Domino’s, Greene King, and Stateside. Her work aligns commercial performance with sustainability ambition, ensuring environmental stewardship and animal welfare improvements translate into operational excellence and long-term value creation.
In 2025, she was recognised for her leadership, influence, and measurable contribution to advancing sustainable livestock supply chains, taking home the prize for Livestock Procurement & Sustainability at the Women in Meat Awards. A particular highlight was her contribution towards an industry agricultural sustainability incentive-driven programme for cattle farmers.
A respected industry voice, Major represents her business at NGO, government and trade body forums, works closely with the Danish Embassy and Ministers within Agriculture, and will chair the Provision Trade Federation (PTF) Members Council Committee from June 2026. She also leads on the partnership engagement with Meat Business Women at Danish Crown.
Giving back to the industry is central to her leadership philosophy. Through her work with Meat Business Women, and leading commercial accounts, she actively mentors emerging leaders and supports young talent from across the sector, helping to build confidence, capability and progression pathways within agriculture and food manufacturing. She is passionate about championing diversity, strengthening industry collaboration, and ensuring the sector attracts and retains the next generation of progressive leaders.
Lucy Wager, Out to Launch
Lucy Wager is a food industry innovator and product development consultant. She has worked across leading UK retailers and manufacturers, starting her career at Bakkavor before moving into product development roles at Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer. She is passionate about practical and future-fit food innovation to create products that are better for people and the planet.
In 2012, she founded the award-winning free-from dessert brand Pudology, helping to shape the early growth of the UK’s chilled plant-based category. Today, she partners with retailers and manufacturers and supports high-growth food startups, ensuring products are both commercially successful and technically robust while pushing standards in health and sustainability.
Most recently, she has been working with WH Smith Travel to help them establish a stronger foothold in the food-to-go market. Over the last two years she has advised them on product development, helping them to pivot from a fully branded food-to-go range in their travel stores to own label, now expanding across further categories. Her work has seen the launch of its ‘Feel Good Food’ range – all products focus on nutrition and boast only green and amber traffic lights and has so far seen a 33% incremental increase in customer attraction. She has also led the development of its premium meal deal range, which has grown 116% year-on-year. In addition, Wager has supported the expansion of the store’s other categories, including foodservice, confectionery and bakery.
Wager’s other passion lies in empowering new talent; and she works with a range of start-ups helping them on their journey into the food sector. Currently, she is supporting the founder of Icesupp – a nutritional supplement that founders Amy and Rob designed to help their family member through his cancer diagnosis by providing a soothing and easy to consume fruit based iced supplement. These vegan frozen food supplements are packed with real fruit, protein, fibre, key vitamins and minerals. Wager has been guiding the duo since the beginning and is now helping them to widen their market net, with the products a perfect product for individuals also just looking for a healthy boost.
Wager has also been working with new baby food brand Acorn Baby which, in partnership with a leading health foundation, is committed to setting new standards in baby food. This has been a two-year project for the team and the products have already won awards for their best-in-class positioning.
Dayna Brackley, Bremner & Co
Dayna Brackley is a partner at Bremner & Co, an independent food policy consultancy specialising in systems change. Her work spans the full life course, from infant feeding and early years nutrition through school food to the wider food environment, with a particular focus on the commercial determinants of child health, including the regulation of infant formula and commercial baby and toddler foods.
She coordinates the Early Years Food Coalition, a cross-sector initiative convened by Bremner & Co and funded by Impact on Urban Health, which brings together NGOs, academics, local authorities, and early education providers to drive collective policy action on early years nutrition. Through this role she works at the intersection of evidence, policy and practice, translating emerging research into clear policy asks and supporting the sector to speak with a more coordinated voice.
She is also a founding partner of the Commercial Baby Food Review, a new cross-sector programme working to improve the nutritional quality, composition and marketing of commercial baby and toddler foods through stronger, accountable regulation. A clearer, more consistent regulatory framework benefits the whole market, creating a level playing field where quality sets the standard for everyone.
Brackley has authored influential reports on early years nutrition, infant formula and food provision, regularly writes on food policy for The Independent, and holds an MSc in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.
Dipna Anand
Dipna Anand is one of those rare chefs who manages to honour her heritage while pushing the industry forward in ways that feel fresh, accessible and genuinely impactful. Growing up in the kitchen of her family’s iconic Southall restaurant, Brilliant, she learned the craft the way many great chefs do, by watching, tasting, and absorbing every secret technique shared by her father and grandfather. That early grounding in Punjabi cooking still shapes everything she does today.
What makes Dipna so compelling is how she’s taken that family legacy and turned it into a modern, multi‑layered career. She co‑runs the Brilliant Restaurant, still one of the UK’s best‑loved Indian eateries and has built a name for herself far beyond its walls. Her West London cookery school is one of the ways she gives back to the industry, offering hands‑on classes that demystify Indian home cooking and make it feel joyfully achievable for anyone who walks through the door.
Dipna’s reach extends into the food manufacturing and catering sector too, which is no small thing. As the brand chef for the Compass Group’s Punjabi food range, she helps shape menus that land in workplaces, universities, and large‑scale catering sites across the country. It’s an area where authentic Indian food has often been watered down but Dipna brings depth, flavour and cultural integrity to a space that needs it.
Her contribution to the industry isn’t just culinary; it’s cultural. Through her books, including Beyond Brilliant, her YouTube channel, and her regular TV appearances, she’s become one of the UK’s most recognisable voices championing real Indian cooking. The industry has taken notice too, she was named Personality of the Year at the British Curry Awards, an honour announced by David Cameron, acknowledging her impact as a woman carving out space in a traditionally male-led field.
But beyond the accolades, Dipna is inspiring because of her approachability. She has a talent for making the complexities of Punjabi cuisine feel warm, personal and entirely doable, whether she’s teaching students in her cookery school, serving guests in her restaurants, or shaping mass‑catering menus. She’s a woman moving the industry forward dish by dish, class by class, partnership by partnership.
For IWD, she stands out as a woman who hasn’t just succeeded in her field, she’s quietly and consistently changed it for the better.
Mecca Ibrahim, Women in the Food Industry
As co-founder of Women In The Food Industry, Mex Ibrahim has helped build a powerful platform that champions gender equity, elevates women’s voices across the UK food and drink sector, and fosters a culture of inclusion and opportunity where too often barriers have stood.
Under her guidance, Women in the Food Industry has become far more than a networking hub; it is a true community and resource for women at all stages of their careers.
Through curated events, panel discussions, mentorship programmes, newsletters and podcasts, Ibrahim has created accessible, high-quality channels that connect women working across all parts of the food landscape – from production and hospitality to leadership and policy. This work directly addresses historic and persistent gender imbalances, helping women advance into senior and influential roles.
In 2025, she was recognised her ongoing, transformative work in advancing equity and representation and named Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Champion at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair Awards. That same year she also won the Hospitality Hero award at The Staff Canteen Awards, celebrating her sustained advocacy for diversity and equal opportunity across the hospitality and food sectors. This is an acknowledgement that reflects not only her individual contributions but the real influence she has had on many professionals’ lives and careers.
Throughout her career, Ibrahim has used her platform to open doors and amplify voices that have historically been under-represented. Drawing on deep industry experience, including nearly eight years as head of marketing and social media at Great British Chefs and her work in strategic digital communications, she brings credibility, strategic insight, and a collaborative approach to her advocacy.
Her influence extends beyond her own organisation however, with Ibrahim sitting on various advisory boards. She is also a regular contribution to sector publications and speaker on important industry stages, bringing visibility to issues facing women and driving conversation around equality, leadership and sustainability.
Amelia Christie-Miller, Bold Bean Co founder
Growing up in Oxfordshire in a big family, Amelia Christie-Miller was always besotted by food. Her favourite childhood books were all food-related, and her aunts on both sides of the family were chefs, so it seemed only natural for Amelia to go into a career in food.
In 2012, Christine-Miller moved to Scotland to begin a history degree at the University of Edinburgh. Whilst studying, she worked as a private chef for Silver Teal Cooks, spending winter weekends in the Highlands and summers in Mallorca cooking for clients. During her third year of university, she did an Erasmus exchange in Madrid. With few friends and inadequate fluency of Spanish, she developed her passion for cooking further by experimenting with local ingredients, and became inspired by the food culture there. A key moment in the Bold Bean co story started here, where Christine-Miller tried jarred beans for the first time, realising how delicious they were compared to the tinned versions in the UK.
After university, she developed an interest in the business side of the food industry, which led her to an internship at The Collective Dairy in 2015, and a digital marketing course in 2017. In the same year, she began working as a sales and business development executive at artisan bakery The Bread Factory (Gail’s Bakery’s mother company), where she began her work with London chefs and restaurants.
In 2017, Christine-Miller moved into foodtech, taking up the role of head of sales and marketing at sustainability start-up Foodchain, a platform connecting chefs, restaurants and households to a wide variety of farmers, growers and producers. Here, she helped grow Foodchain’s network to over 450 restaurant customers, working with top restaurants such as Lyle’s and Chiltern Firehouse and suppliers like HG Walter and The Estate Dairy. Working in this space gave her a new appreciation of the importance of sustainability in our food system. During this time, she also spoke on behalf of Foodchain on a variety of podcasts and panels.
Her work in the food sustainability space highlighted key food system issues such as soil health, diversity and our need to reduce meat consumption. With their millions of varieties and soil-rejuvenating properties, protein-packed beans were the logical answer to so many of society’s food system issues. Christine-Miller realised this and coupled with the way she saw chefs in the sector working with them on menus, she became obsessed with beans being the answer.
Aged just 27, armed with the knowledge of how delicious quality beans could be from her time in Spain, Christine-Miller founded Bold Bean Co in May 2021, on a mission “to make you obsessed with beans, by giving you the best of beans”. Within a year the company became a firm favourite of chefs such as Joe Woodhouse, Noor Murad, and the Mob Kitchen team, and is now sold in stores such as Waitrose, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Booths, as well as many independents. As a young female entrepreneur, Christine-Miller is now a member of Buy Women Built, a campaign to mobilise consumers to buy from female-founded businesses.
In addition, she is the author of bestselling cookbook Bold Beans: Recipes to Get Your Pulse Racing, and has become a familiar face on national TV, with recent appearances on BBC Dragons Den and ITV This Morning. Her second cookbook, Full of Beans, publishes on 9th October 2025 (Kyle Books).
Zahra Afshar, Ahmad Tea
Zahra Afshar is a lawyer turned sustainability leader who has dedicated her career to advancing justice – first in the courtroom and now across global supply chains. Trained in criminal defence and human rights law, she specialised in prison law and miscarriages of justice before moving in-house to Ahmad Tea, a family-owned business exporting to over 90 countries.
As head of legal, human rights and sustainability, Afshar now applies her analytical rigour and principled outlook to one of the world’s most complex and historic supply chains. The tea industry is still largely hand-plucked – especially by women who, since the colonial beginnings of the industry, have been marginalised. She is passionate about restoring duties and progressing rights to these communities, ensuring that those who grow and harvest tea are treated with fairness and dignity.
She leads initiatives that tackle systemic inequality head-on, from closing the living wage gap for tea workers to delivering programmes which improve health, sanitation and education. Under her leadership, Ahmad Tea was honoured with the King’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development in 2024, recognising its commitment to embedding people and planet at the heart of commercial growth.
She has also designed and is piloting a pioneering profit-share initiative to bring visibility and value directly into the hands of those who handpick the tea; ensuring that the people who work the hardest in the value chain are recognised and rewarded.
Educated at Bristol University and the London School of Economics, and called to the Bar, Afshar brings a rare combination of legal expertise, sustainability leadership, and a deep commitment to justice. Her vision is to redefine ethical leadership in global business – proving that supply chains can be not just sustainable, but truly equitable.
Kath Dalmeny, Sustain
Kath Dalmeny is the CEO of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming.
Her background is as a food campaigner and consultant to organisations such as the Food Commission, National Consumer Council, National Federation of Women’s Institutes, Food Climate Research Network, Greater London Authority, and the London Development Agency. She was formerly a commissioner on the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.
Among many initiatives, Dalmeny instigated and helped to develop the Good Food for London and Beyond the Food Bank reports, now established for over a decade and being replicated in other areas, driving uptake of good food schemes by local authorities. She also instigated the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, which won healthy and sustainable food standards for Whitehall, prisons and parts of the armed forces, and in NHS Standard Contracts for hospitals.
In 2017, she helped to launch of the Right to Food initiative, exploring the legal foundations that would ensure that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, is able to eat well and not experience hunger. The Right to Food principle was adopted in the manifestos of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Green Party, and the SNP in the 2019 General Election, and was instrumental in launching a judicial review of the Government’s approach to children’s holiday hunger during Covid-19.
She also sits on the steering group for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, and regularly gives advice to a range of food organisations. Dalmeny is now leading Sustain’s work in a 100+ coalition of food business, NGOs and academics calling for a Good Food Bill; a new piece of legislation and a once-in-a-life time opportunity for the UK Government to set out a visionary plan to transform the food system.
Sarah Bradbury, IGD
Sarah Bradbury is the CEO of the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), a unique charitable organisation committed to public benefit.
IGD acts as a trusted convener for the entire food supply chain, providing evidence-based insights and strategic foresight to tackle critical challenges and drive positive change.
Bradbury has more than 25 years’ experience in retail and food, including as group quality director at Tesco. She joined the retailer in 2010, moving across from Aldi.
In 2018, she was appointed Tesco’s group quality director, where she was responsible for regulatory and food safety compliance. During her tenure here, she developed the ‘Planet Plan’ net zero commitment, whilst driving the quality and health agenda.
In June 2020 she joined IGD as co-chair for the technical leadership forum.
Bradbury is passionate about collaboration, inclusivity, and using the food system as a force for good.
“Inclusion is the right thing to do to ensure we all meet our potential and I want everyone to be open and honest and feel part of what we are trying to achieve. I want to create an environment where people can be the best version of themselves,” she wrote in an interview published on IGD in 2021, two years before assuming her role as the charity’s lead.
Bradbury is a well-known figurehead in the food and drink space and respected leader, having served as a judge for the recent Food Manufacture Excellence Awards and regularly speaking at big industry events.
