David Barling (Chair of Good Food on the Public Plate working party)
Relevant financial interests: Centre for Food Policy is undertaking the evaluation of the Good Food Training for London project (for which Sustain is a partner), working under contract to Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency
David is a senior lecturer in Food Policy at the Centre for Food Policy at City University and programme leader for the MSc in Food Policy, specialising in food governance, standards and the food supply chain. He is a member of Defra’s Organic Action Plan for England; the British Standards Institute Committee on Quality Systems for the Food Industry; the UK Food Group; the editorial board of the international journal Agriculture and Human Values; and has been on Sustain working parties. David has conducted research/consultancy for a number of NGOs and for; the Department for International Development, the European Commission, the European Training and Assessment Foundation and the European Parliament.
Myles Bremner (Chair of Capital Growth working party)
Relevant financial interests: Chief Executive of Garden Organic
Myles Bremner joined Garden Organic, the UK’s leading organic growing charity, in October 2007. Previous roles include interim Director of Fundraising at NCH - Action for Children, Head of Operations at St John Ambulance, and the British Olympic Association. His keen interest is in young people’s empowerment and participation in providing a better infrastructure for developing life skills. He is determined that food skills – growing, cooking and eating – are firmly on the learning agenda. Myles is a Trustee of the Warwickshire Environmental Trust and has recently founded a local growing group in the village where he lives in Warwickshire.
Helen Crawley
Relevant financial interests: None
Helen is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and Dietitian with over 25 years experience in applied human nutrition, health related research, policy development and teaching. Helen is currently a senior lecturer in nutrition at Kingston University and Science Director of the public health nutrition charity The Caroline Walker Trust. CWT campaigns for better quality of food in public settings and better training for those who provide food for vulnerable groups in the UK. For CWT Helen has researched and written nutritional and practical guidelines for older people, older people with dementia, school aged children, looked after children, children under 5 in child care and children and adults with learning disabilities.
Anne Dolamore (Chair of Sustain; also Chair of London Food Link working party)
Relevant financial interests: Co-owner of Grub Street publishing, specialising in food and cookery
Anne is a past Chair of the Guild of Food Writers and is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is the publisher at Grub Street Publishing which specialises in cookery, especially health, children’s food and allergy-related topics. Anne has also taken a keen interest in the development of the market for local foods, and organic foods and is deeply concerned about the potential negative impact of GM crops.
Emma Hockridge
Relevant financial interests: The Soil Association is a recipient of a Big Lottery grant as part of the 'Making Local Food Work' programme (for which Sustain is a portfolio partner)
Emma works in the policy department of the Soil Association, having previously worked at Sustain, first on the hospital food project, and then on the expanded Good Food on the Public Plate project. She has an MA in Sustainable Development Advocacy, which focused on rural land use. Prior to this she worked for HSBC and Defra, and carried out conservation in the Peruvian jungle after completing her degree in Geography and Environmental Studies. She recently completed a Nuffield farming scholarship; her study focused on growing unusual crops in the UK and engaging in the industry people not usually involved in agriculture. Emma’s family run a mixed farm in mid-Devon in which she continues to be involved.
Vicki Hird
Relevant financial interests: Occasional consultancies for organisations and companies
Vicki was Coordinator of the SAFE Alliance before it merged with National Food Alliance in 1999 to become Sustain and worked at Friends of the Earth prior to that. She returned to Friends of the Earth as their Senior Food Campaigner. She is now a Food and Environment consultant with clients including the Sustainable Development Commission, FoE Europe and Landshare. She is running the UK Sick of Pesticides Campaign for the Health and Environment Alliance. Vicki has a particular interest in insects after a Masters degree looking at pest control systems and has run major campaigns and published numerous reports on food, farming and environment policy as well as a book - Perfectly Safe to eat? The Facts on Food (Women's Press). She was a member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council for six years, and a Director of the Food Commission and of Growing Communities (a local food growing and buying cooperative). She is a Trustee of Pesticides Action Network and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Entomological Society.
Anthony Kleanthous
Relevant financial interests: Occasional consultancies for organisations and companies
WWF-UK has begun a programme of work called One Planet Food to develop an understanding of the environmental and social effects of food consumed in the UK and to propose solutions. We would like this work to be as collaborative as possible so that NGOs, citizens, businesses and government all have a constructive role to play and are as aligned as possible on solutions. We view the work of Sustain as important to this process, and would like an opportunity to both learn from and guide Sustain’s work.
Iain Loe (Chair of Real Bread Campaign working party)
Relevant financial interests: None
Iain has been the Research and Information Manager at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) since 1989. He currently works in the Public Affairs Department developing CAMRA’s policy on a wide range of issues including Competition Policy, Excise Duty, Licensing etc. He also services the various national committees of the Campaign and is the National spokesperson for the Campaign. He helped found, and is a leading member of, the European Beer Consumer Union (EBCU) – a federation of 13 National Beer Consumer Groups, so that they can effectively present the beer drinkers’ and pub goers’ case to the European Commission and Parliament. During his time at CAMRA membership has grown from 18,000 to over 105,000.
Philip Lymbery
Relevant financial interests: None
Philip Lymbery is Chief Executive of Compassion In World Farming (CIWF). With over 15 years of professional animal welfare experience, Philip was formerly Director of Communications for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (2003-2005). Throughout the 1990s Philip was CIWF’s Campaigns Director and is an acknowledged expert on farm animal welfare. He played a major role in the high profile CIWF campaign in 1994-96 to ban live animal exports, which won the PR Week award for best environmental media relations campaign 1994/95 at the British Environment and Media Awards. He is an experienced media spokesperson, having fielded many interviews for national, international, and regional broadcast media. Philip has a life-long interest in wild birds and is a keen bird ringer on behalf of the British Trust for Ornithology.
Tom MacMillan
Relevant financial interests: None
Tom MacMillan is Executive Director of the Food Ethics Council, which provides independent advice to help find a way through controversial issues in food and farming. He was a member of the expert advisory panel for the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit’s Food Matters report, and is a member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Science and Society Strategy Panel. He is a treasurer of the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, which aims to make healthy and sustainable food readily available to all across the city. He has a PhD in Geography from the University of Manchester.
Patrick Mulvany (Chair of UK Food Group)
Relevant financial interests: None
Patrick is senior policy adviser to the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action). For the last 10 years he has been in the forefront of its international advocacy work with a special focus on appropriate technology, food sovereignty, and agricultural biodiversity policies. The programme priorities are: the Right to Food; strengthening local markets; localised food systems and fair trade; equitable access to productive natural resources; and giving priority to sustainable agroecological production and harvesting systems. In this context, detailed work has focused on conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity for food and livelihood security and equitable sharing of benefits; genetic engineering; intellectual property and trade issues. He participates in processes supporting Via Campesina, the international peasant farmers’ movement, and the civil society lobbies at the UN, especially the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Convention on Biological Diversity. He is currently Chair of the UK Food Group.
Dr. Annette Pinner
Relevant financial interests: None
Annette is Chief Executive of the Vegetarian Society with responsibility for the charity’s information and advice service, youth education work, food labelling scheme and cookery school. Prior to joining the charity three years ago, she was a senior manager at the Environment Agency with overall accountability for implementing the organisation’s environmental regulation and improvement services across Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. She has gained a broad range of experience in these roles including strategic leadership and operational management as well as knowledge of membership organisations, public relations, and the voluntary and public sectors. She has a particular interest in the relationship between the environment and food production and feels it is vital to understand the many factors that influence dietary choice. She originally trained as a soil scientist.
Mike Rayner (Vice-Chair of Sustain, and Chair of the Children’s Food Campaign working party)
Relevant financial interests: None
Mike Rayner is Director of the British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at Oxford University, which undertakes research into effective methods of preventing disease - particularly diet related chronic diseases such as heart disease. Mike is particularly interested in nutrition education, food labelling and the effects of agricultural policy on people's diets.
Patti Rundall, OBE
Relevant financial interests: Two shares in Nestlé, held for the purpose of attending AGM
Patti Rundall has worked for nearly 20 years with Baby Milk Action and the global network IBFAN, campaigning for effective controls on the marketing and labelling of breastmilk substitutes. She is especially interested in public relations and sponsorship and its impact on NGOs, the UN and on health and education services. Baby Milk Action is the secretariat of the 20-country international Nestle Boycott Committee.
Bill Vorley
Relevant financial interests: None
Bill leads the Sustainable Markets Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). He was involved in the Race to the Top project, exploring the social and environmental performance of UK supermarkets. He has since coordinated a large programme of research on the impact of agrifood modernisation in emerging economies. His research and policy interests are in the sustainability and governance of agrifood markets. Before joining IIED in 1999, Bill was the Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Environment and Agriculture Programme. He also holds a Ph.D from Southampton University. Bill was a Sustain Council member from 2003 to 2008 and is happy to be re-engaged with the work of the Alliance.
