Core staff, project and campaign coordinators and officers
Danila Ardé
Head of HR and Operations
Danila joined Sustain in September 2024 as the charity’s first Head of HR and Operations, having held the role previously in the health, charity and higher education sector, and has worked in HR for over 30 years both in the UK and abroad.
Danila has a post-graduate qualification in Human Resource Management and is CIPD accredited. Her experience spans both small charities and large multi-site organisations. Supporting people who want to make a real difference in the world combines her love of HR and the belief that we all have a responsibility to our environment and each other.
Recent project management and community engagement work include coordinating local community projects which included working with volunteers to increase biodiversity in suburban areas by planting up public facing green verges and street tree pits, arranging seed swap events, seed sowing events, energy workshops, running a citizen science air quality project with Breathe London, writing funding bids, and working with local school teachers, children and community groups to encourage positive participation in environmental projects designed to address climate change and pollution and encourage social cohesion.
Fran Bernhardt
Commercial Determinants Coordinator
Fran Bernhardt is Sustain’s Commercial Determinants Coordinator. She specialises in supporting governments to champion children’s health by switching the spotlight away from unhealthy foods and drinks across their advertising estates.
In 2018, she was seconded into the Mayor of London’s team where she advised on writing and implementing the policy across the Transport for London network.
Since then she has written Sustain’s Healthier Food Advertising Policy Toolkit and supported a further 21 English local authorities to successfully introduce policies including the UK’s first ever comprehensive commercial baby food advertising restriction in line with World Health Organization recommendations.
She now runs a working party of over 150 UK local governments, has been consulted by several international governments and has given keynote speeches at international conferences.
She regularly contributes to academic research, has been published as lead author in a peer-reviewed journal and in 2024, was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore successful food industry regulations in Latin America.
Barbara Crowther
Campaign Manager
Barbara joined Sustain in 2018 and manages the Children’s Food Campaign, which champions children’s rights, parent power and government action to improve the food environment children grow up in. This includes campaigning for tighter regulations of junk food marketing to children, better school food and reducing children’s consumption of sugary or unhealthy food.
Barbara worked for over 13 years for the Fairtrade Foundation as Director of Policy & Public Affairs, leading the organisation’s communications, public campaigning, policy and research to make trade work better for farmers and workers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Prior to that she was Head of Campaigns at Save the Children, working on child poverty and child rights. As well as her work for Sustain, Barbara is a freelance campaigns and public affairs consultant specialising in sustainability, ethical trade and human rights, a personal and professional performance coach and an avid foodie, birdwatcher, singer and creative writer.
Hannah Crump
Local Policy Coordinator
Hannah coordinates Good Food Local, which supports local authorities to prioritise good food and commit to action on a breadth of food issues. She is also co-author of the Good Food for All Londoners report, which benchmarks councils and aims to inspire leadership on food policy and practice.
Hannah joined Sustain in August 2021 to take forward the London Food Link network, with a focus on Good Food Enterprise. Her role involved developing campaigns and projects to promote and support good food in London, engage network supporters and manage relevant comms, including the Jellied Eel print and online magazine.
Hannah has a background in sustainability and a love for food and throughout her career, has worked for charities, businesses, and social enterprises managing operations and delivering green projects and programmes. Having worked for Unpackaged and the Sustainable Restaurant Association she has experience in working on zero waste with businesses, sustainability within restaurants and hospitality sectors, and community led growing projects working in partnerships with organisations including Eden Project Communities.
Bella Driessen
Local Policy Coordinator
Bella joined Sustain as Local Action Officer, working on Good to Grow, Veg Cities, Sugar Smart, and Food for the Planet. She has a background in organic market gardening and research.
Bella coordinates Good Food Local, which supports local authorities to prioritise good food and commit to action on a breadth of food issues.
Rachel Dring
Capital Growth Coordinator
A Londoner born and bred, Rachel started her sustainable food journey as an intern at Sustain in 2012. She was working as a vegan chef at the time and went on to set up and run a local veg scheme called Crop Drop. She also helped to establish a community food hub at Wolves Lane, set up a community kitchen and food growing operation there and worked on marketing at Growing Communities alongside. She grows food at home and with her local community garden in Woodford. Her current and enduring obsession is her small brood of hens.
Gavin Dupée
Head of Digital & Design
Gavin manages Sustain's online and print presence, and develops technologies to help engage with Sustain’s audiences. Gavin has 20 years of experience developing web solutions predominantly for the charity sector. A comprehensive knowledge of PHP, Javascript and MySQL forms the backbone to numerous bespoke solutions he has developed for Sustain and partners ranging from Jamie Oliver to the Mayor of London.
His Sugar Smart platform empowers leaders across the UK to engage with local partners creating real change in an auditable way. The core Sustain site sits top of the search engines serving over a million visits a year, and integrations with the API services of Google, Twitter, Mailchimp and others give the ability to make more of Sustain’s data, and further engage with existing and potential supporters. So whether it be a national map of bakeries, an application to record and audit fruit and veg harvests in small growing sites, or a platform to manage a national grants programme, Gavin has coded it.
Additionally, Gavin develops web applications and print media for a number of charities, research groups, companies and private individuals, and has designed courses and lectured in web and graphical design.
Georgina Edwards
Campaign Officer
Georgina’s work helps to promote a transition to agroecological farming systems that provide healthy, affordable and sustainable food while supporting good livelihoods.
Georgina joined Sustain in August 2024, having worked in research, policy and advocacy in the third sector. Her background is in campaigning for better legislation, funding and support for rural and community co-operatives to get set up and to thrive. She has a strong interest in food and farming, having been an allotment grower for several years, and through volunteering at a community farm, edible garden, and farmers market.
Charlotte Gage
Local Food Retail Coordinator (Maternity Cover)
Charlotte joined Sustain in March 2024 as the Local Food Retail Coordinator (maternity cover) to take forward the Local Food Plan, which aims to increase routes-to-market for locally sourced, sustainable food.
With a robust background in project management within the charity sector, Charlotte has led on environmental sustainability, built large stakeholder networks, and supported numerous charities to strengthen their digital impact.
Charlotte studied her Master’s Degree in Sustainable development, specialising in agriculture. Passionate about agroecology, Charlotte has also volunteered on numerous organic farms.
Hannah Gibbs
Programme Manager
Hannah joined Sustain in November 2022 as Programme Manager for the Bridging the Gap programme, which aims to demonstrate ways to build better supply chains between climate and nature friendly food and people on a lower income. Hannah has a background in leading international development programmes, and community building and campaigns for socially responsible business.
Kate Howard
Campaign Coordinator
Kate joined Sustain in June 2023, and coordinates the Recipe for Change campaign, as part of the wider Children’s Food Campaign. Recipe for Change is calling on the Government to introduce new industry levies to help make our food and drink healthier, building on the success of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy.
She brings a background in managing programmes in a range of health and educational settings in the UK and abroad, most recently in Nesta’s People Powered Results team where she supported long term change in the NHS and community settings by mobilising those closest to the issues.
She was first introduced to Sustain by learning about the Capital Growth programme through her wonderful local community garden.
Naema Jannath
Campaign Officer
Naema joined Sustain in June 2023 as the Children’s Food Campaign Officer. After finishing her Masters in Public Policy and an internship at Bite Back 2030, her interest in children’s health and nutrition grew. Naema works on the ‘Say Yes to School Food for All’ campaign, advocating for all children to have equal chance to thrive at school and improving the relationship between happy children and healthy food. Also, Naema leads on the Children’s Food Ambassador Programme, highlighting the voices of parents and carers in children’s food policy.
Alan Karlik
Digital & Design Officer
Alan is a graphic and web designer, with passion for music, multisensory design and sustainability.
Stephanie Kennedy
Communications & Learning Coordinator
Communications lead at Sustain, across web, socials and press.
Stephanie also represented Sustain in the FoodSHIFT2030 project, an EU project supporting innovative food systems across Europe. Her role was to facilitate knowledge exchange amongst project partners and beyond via the production and dissemination of online tools such as webinars, forums and more.
Prior to Sustain, Stephanie worked in communications for the education and arts education sector. She is also a former broadcast journalist, including 7 years in Latin America where she worked on community media projects and as a production assistant to documentary filmmakers, before reporting for an international news platform in both Venezuela and Brazil.
Gillian Morgan
Planning Lead
Gillian is supporting Sustainable Food Cities engage in the plan-making process to ensure that community food growing has been taken into account in their local plans.
As well as being a planner who has specialised in the strategic planning and management of greenspace (from local level in London Boroughs through to national park level as planning director in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads), Gillian is a passionate gardener.
She started volunteering for Capital Growth, meeting inspirational community food growers and has gone on to publish Sustain's guidance for planners on writing planning policies to support community food growing.
Lily O'Mara
Local Action Officer (Maternity Cover)
Lily is a climate justice campaigner who works in the Climate and Nature Emergency team at Sustain. Until the end of 2023, she was working as the Local Action Officer as part of the Sustainable Food Places, a network of 111 food partnerships across the UK.
Lily recently joined the prestigious Bertha challenge cohort as part of the 2024 fellowship programme, where she aims to expose the polluting and undemocratic practices of agribusinesses linked to factory farming in the UK, and empower local communities to challenge them. She graduated with a Masters in Law and Gender studies from SOAS with Distinction, during which she spent time in Tunisia researching the gendered exploitation of labour towards women farm workers in the informal agricultural economy. She believes in a just food system that values local communities, animal life, environmental health, and democratic integrity.
Kiloran O’Leary
Programme Officer
Kiloran joined Sustain in November 2022 as Programme Officer for the Bridging the Gap programme, which aims to demonstrate ways to build better supply chains between climate and nature friendly food and people on a lower income.
Kiloran has a background in growing, education, network coordination and food partnership coordination. She previously worked as co-director at OrganicLea and Story Garden Manager at Global Generation. Kiloran is driven by the belief that everyone should have the right to access food that is good for the planet and good for health.
Sareta Puri
Diversity Outreach Coordinator
Sareta coordinates Sustain's diversity outreach work which aims to bring more people from underrepresented backgrounds, with specific focus on ethnic diversity, into the progressive food and farming sector. A core part of this work is outreach with younger people and students to inspire them to get involved in the movement. She manages Sustain’s Roots to Work jobs platform which is also a tool to engage new and diverse talent into the sector.
Sareta has worked freelance for several years in areas of sustainable food, community and diversity. This includes as chef, teacher and special project development at Made In Hackney community cookery school; ambassador for Be Inclusive Hospitality; and in several strategy and operations lead roles in plant-based food startups. Prior to being self-employed Sareta had a decade-long career in youth and education charities and holds a Masters degrees in Childhood Studies from The University of Edinburgh.
Isabel Rice
Campaign Coordinator
Isabel joined Sustain in September 2022 to coordinate the London Food Poverty Campaign which highlights and encourages sustainable responses to food insecurity. Isabel works closely with local authorities and food partnerships on policy and practice to tackle the root causes of food poverty, as well as conducting lived experience work to inform recommendations. She leads on Good Food Local: the London report, which benchmarks council action on food and inspires leadership on food policy and practice in the capital.
Isabel also leads on the national Connecting Community Food Enterprises project, supporting sustainable development of community food projects, and encouraging partnership and social investment from councils and housing associations.
Isabel is a Registered Dietitian with a background in clinical and public health nutrition working with marginalised populations in London. She has undertaken research and advocacy work focusing on food insecurity in the UK, and management of frontline food aid provision. Isabel is also a committee member of the Public Health Specialist Group for the British Dietetic Association. Following a master’s degree in Nutrition for Global Health, Isabel was further inspired to work towards promoting sustainable food systems and reducing nutritional and health inequity. She has published work on improving access to health and nutrition services for disabled children in Uganda.
Roshni Shah
Diversity Outreach Coordinator (Maternity Cover)
Roshni joined Sustain in September 2024 as Diversity Outreach Coordinator (Maternity Cover). She coordinates Sustain's diversity outreach work which aims to bring more people from underrepresented backgrounds, with specific focus on ethnic diversity, into the progressive food and farming sector. The work includes a movement building programme, helping organisations to become more inclusive and anti-racist. She also manages Sustain’s Roots to Work jobs platform which is a tool to engage new and diverse talent into the sector.
Roshni has 10 years of experience of working and volunteering in sustainable food and community spaces and has always been passionate about diversity. Most recently she was Plant Prospects Programme Manager at Made in Hackney and Community Coordinator at Elizabeth House Community Centre.
Abi Taylor
Finance & Administration Officer
Abi joined Sustain in July 2019 as the Finance & Administration Officer. She studied Nutrition & Health at university and has previously worked in the fitness industry. She is passionate about health, wellbeing, sustainability and conservation.
Quoc-anh Tran
Head of Finance
Following graduation with a degree in Accounting and Business Information Technology, Quoc-anh joined Sustain in February 2002. Quoc-anh is continuing his professional development by working towards becoming a full member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
As Sustain's Head of Finance , Quoc-anh works closely with the project officers in managing budgets, prepares management accounts for finance and board meetings, and produces Sustain's annual accounts ready for the audit.
Among other duties Quoc-anh is responsible for are developing project budgets for grant applications as well as reporting to funders.
Ruth Westcott
Campaign Manager
Ruth manages Sustain's work on the Climate and Nature Emergency and on Sustainable Fishing, working to make food a central part of policies to tackle the climate and nature emergency at a local and national level; also to encourage businesses to adopt a fully sustainable fish policy, and thereby help transform the way the world's oceans are fished.
Ruth has led campaigns at Sustain for over seven years, joining from the Marine Stewardship Council. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, where she was awarded the Fishmongers' Company Scholarship.
Will White
Sustainable Farming Coordinator
Will joined as Sustainable Farming Campaign Coordinator at Sustain in September 2023, and has a background in implementing Agroecological farming methods and managing vineyards in Somerset. Outside of his farming expertise, Will has previously worked on issues surrounding food poverty, having coordinated food bank collection campaigns in Bristol and near Manchester. Will is a dedicated advocate for nature friendly farming and fairness across the entirety of the food supply chain.
Chris Young
Campaign Coordinator
Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. In addition to lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf composition, labelling and marketing laws; he created and runs Sourdough September; Real Bread Week; Real Bread For All; Together We Rise promoting therapeutic/social benefits and bread making; the No Loaf Lost surplus reduction initiative; as well as Lessons in Loaf and Bake Your Lawn for schools. He’s the author of the Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook and Slow Dough: Real Bread recipe book; and edits True Loaf magazine.
From 2014-18, Chris also coordinated the London Food Link network, which included editing The Jellied Eel magazine and helping to launch and run the Urban Food Awards. Chris has pulled on his judge’s wig for BOOM Awards, The Cateys, The Great Taste Awards, The Scottish Bread Championship and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship.
Vera Zakharov
Campaign Coordinator
Vera is the Sustainable Food Places Local Action Coordinator, linking up local activity across the network to help drive national-level policy change. She oversees the programme’s Good Food Movement work, helping food partnerships connect with grassroots communities and support resident-led action. She also leads on the Veg Cities campaign and the annual Sustainable Food Places Day of Celebration and Action.
She has previously coordinated the Sugar Smart campaign. Prior to joining Sustain, she ran local food waste action initiatives, including Brighton & Hove’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign and Surplus Food Network, as well as Feedback’s Sussex Gleaning Network.
Senior leadership team
Kath Dalmeny
Chief Executive
Kath is Chief Executive of Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming.
Among many initiatives, Kath 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 Good Food for Our Money campaign and 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. Previously, Kath designed and instigated the Sustainable Fish Cities alliance campaign, which won pledges to serve 100% verifiably sustainable fish from caterers that together serve 1 billion meals a year. Kath also sits on the steering group for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, campaigning to end the overuse of antibiotics in farming.
Following the EU Referendum in 2016, Kath led the alliance's response to Brexit and its profound implications for healthy and sustainable food, farming and fishing under the coordinating banner of the Campaign for a Better Food Britain. During 2020, she served as Chair of the Future British Standards Coalition that championed and led to establishment of the government’s Trade and Agriculture Commission to scrutinise post-Brexit international trade deals for their impact on farming, food standards and the environment.
During the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic from 2020 to 2022, Kath was the alliance lead on Food and Vulnerability, serving on numerous liaison and coordination groups to support the emergency food response at local and national level. She was instrumental in launching a judicial review of the government's approach to children's holiday hunger during Covid-19.
From 2013 to 2017, Kath served on the Programme Management Board for the Sustainable Food Places network, working with Food Matters and the Soil Association. She is honoured to be able to continue as an advisor and speaker for this thriving network.
From 2009 to 2012, Kath was a member of the Food Advisory Group to the Organising Committee of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which wrote and published the first ever Olympic Food Vision standards, championing local and seasonal food, higher animal welfare, sustainable fish, Fairtrade products, reduced waste, and tap water on demand. For many years she has also served as a member of, or advisor to, the London Food Board, under three consecutive mayoral administrations.
Kath's 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.
On a voluntary basis, Kath is a trustee of a community-run box scheme and farmers' market that runs a game-changing, farmer-focused not-for-profit wholesaler in East London (Growing Communities); and a not-for-profit food policy group that helps individuals and organisations working towards more sustainable, equitable food systems (Food Matters).
Formerly, she was a voluntary board member of Feedback, the global food waste campaign (Feedback); and a campaign to persuade government, Ofgem and the National Grid to consider the potential for small-scale electrical appliances such as fridges to balance energy demand (Dynamic Demand).
Kath is a proud not-for-profit shareholder in numerous community food initiatives, including Scotland the Bread, Fordhall Farm, The Community Farm, Luminary Bakery and the Ourfield initiative.
Kath has a first-class Masters in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy at City University London.
Her awards include being identified as one of 10 most influential campaigners in 2018 by The Right Ethos; one of the Top 20 most influential people in public sector catering in 2018 and 2020 in Public Sector Catering magazine; the 2006 Caroline Walker Trust Lifetime Award and, in 2016, an International Giraffe Appreciation Society award for "sticking her neck out in the public interest" (a title of which she is immensely proud), for helping catalyse third-sector legal challenges to the "anti-advocacy clause". Her work contributed to both the Food Commission and Sustain winning BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards for food campaigning. After Sustain won the 2005 Judge's Special Award, Kath was also honoured to serve for a decade on the judging panel for the BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards, meeting many inspiring food entrepreneurs and campaigners.
Kath Dalmeny owns one share in Barclays Bank, for the purposes of share activism on the climate and nature emergency, in support of the work of ShareAction. If this generates any profit, she will donate it to Friends of the Earth.
Glen Tarman
Policy Director
Glen is Policy and Advocacy Director for Sustain and a member of the Senior Leadership Team, having joined the alliance in 2024.
Glen leads Sustain’s advocacy and influencing for food and agriculture policies and practices that improve people’s health, welfare and environment as well as growing the movement for a better system of food, farming and fishing.
Glen is a non-profit leader with over 30 years’ experience in advocacy, campaigning, policy, communications and digital for charities and international development, human rights and environmental NGOs.
Glen previously headed advocacy globally for the INGOs CARE International and Action Against Hunger and he was Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns Director for Bond, the UK network of international NGOs.
A co-founder of Make Poverty History, one of the biggest campaigns Britain has seen, Glen has led many coalitions and campaigns in the UK and internationally that have combined lobbying and citizen action to win change on social justice causes (including Sustain sister alliance the Trade Justice Movement).
Glen was chair of Sustain member Feedback, the environment and food campaign group, from 2016 to 2022.
Prior to joining Sustain, Glen headed policy and advocacy at Full Fact having earlier been at Thomson Reuters Foundation where he was director of a global service supporting NGOs and their advocacy.
Sarah Williams
Programmes Director
Sarah is Programmes Director for Sustain and a member of the Senior Leadership Team, having joined in in 2009 to run Capital Growth campaign, which supported 2,012 new community food growing gardens in London.
Sarah has developed several new programmes at Sustain including Big Dig, Growing Health and more recently Bridging the Gap. Her work focuses on our Local Action theme and includes overseeing Sustainable Food Places, London Food Link and Sustain’s food growing programmes. Sarah also represents Sustain on the London Food Board, and co leads our work on skills including the Food Learning Forum.
Prior to Sustain her roles included running community regeneration projects, at Groundwork East London and Strategic Manager of the Newham Food Access Partnership. Sarah has a Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development, achieved through the Forum for the Future programme.
Sustain trustees share their routes into sustainable food and farming
The short documentary hears from trustees Shefalee Loth, from Which?; Dr Kawther Hashem from Action on Salt, Sugar and Healt; Jyoti Fernandes, from Landworkers Alliance and Raksha Mistry from the Soil Association. They speak about challenges and opportunities in their roles and sectors, from access to land to perceptions of being a woman of colour, and touch on cross-cutting issues in food justice and public health. Blog and credits.
Council of trustees
The members of Sustain's Council of Trustees are highly experienced and much valued advisors on Sustain's governance and strategic direction. They are elected by the Sustain alliance membership to form a governing body and declare any relevant interests (see individual profiles). Sustain’s Council of Trustees meets quarterly to guide the work of the alliance and many also serve as Working Party chairs or as Lead Trustees on specific areas of expertise. There are 15 places on the Council, with 5 offered as role-shares to create opportunities for diversity in terms of ethnicity, background and experience, and to cultivate younger talent in our sector.
Emma Österberg
Independent Food Aid Network
Emma Österberg works at the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) as a Project Officer. Their vision is of a country without the need for charitable food aid, where adequate and nutritious food is affordable to all.
Emma has always been passionate about working in the realm of poverty, food insecurity and human rights. While completing her undergraduate degree in Social and Political Science, she wrote her dissertation on migrants’ access to food aid in the UK. During the writing process she was in touch with IFAN and got to know the team who later offered her a position at the organisation.
Emma's MSc in Political Science provides her with further understanding of different systems and further opportunities, informing her chosen career path as an avid advocate for justice and equity.
Emma serves in a Trustee role-share position with Dee Woods
Declaration of interest: None
Mark Ainsworth
Alexandra Rose Charity
Mark is the Head of Finance and Business Services at Alexandra Rose Charity. The charity provides Rose Vouchers for fruit and vegetables, supporting pregnant women and families living on low incomes to eat more healthily and improve their health and well-being.
Mark has significant senior financial management experience, focused in recent years in the charity sector, but has also worked as a senior management consultant with both Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Ernst & Young earlier in his career.
He has spent most of the last 25 years working in sectors and for organisations supporting vulnerable and disadvantaged people, and holds strong beliefs and values about the importance of access to healthy and affordable food to support a more equal society.
Mark serves in a Trustee role-share position with Amy Deptford
Declaration of interest: Alexandra Rose Charity is a funded partner in the Bridging the Gap programme, led by Sustain and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund
Sara Azeem
Community Action Suffolk
Sara Azeem is a Community Food Partnership Officer at Community Action Suffolk, where she is working to support community food projects and address food insecurity in local communities.
In her current role, Sara collaborates with community hubs, food suppliers, and support organisations to create comprehensive solutions for residents facing hardship. She is also working with stakeholders across Suffolk’s food system to set up the Suffolk Food Partnership.
Sara's background in Economics and Global Sustainable Development from the University of Warwick underpins her work, which is guided by a systems-thinking approach honed through the IFSTAL programme. Her experience includes roles with Sustain where she conducted research on policies to improve access to organic produce and Coventry City Council, where she conducted carbon reporting and supported implementation of the city’s climate change strategy.
Sara serves as in a Trustee role-share position
Declaration of interest: None
Josie Cohen
Pesticide Action Network UK
Josie Cohen joined Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) in June 2017 to head up the organisation's UK campaigning, policy and communications work. She studied politics at university and has spent the last twenty years working as a campaigner for a range of organisations including the League Against Cruel Sports and Save the Children UK. For the decade before joining PAN UK she focused on social, environmental and human rights issues associated with large-scale agriculture, leading ActionAid UK's biofuels campaign and working on land rights for Global Witness.
Declaration of interest: none
Djenai Delerue
Open Food Network
Djenai is the communications and events lead at the Open Food Network (OFN). She helps OFN to grow and build a network. Having studied community action and food systems, Djenai is eager to participate and support change within our current food systems.
Djenai is passionate about supporting communities as well as be part of making the sector more diverse, inclusive, and equitable. This includes creating inclusive events, championing minority voices and highlighting the work done by other organisations that work in food justice.
Role-share with Nick Weir, Open Food Network
Declaration of interest: None
Amy Deptford
Alexandra Rose Charity
Amy Deptford is a public health nutritionist with almost a decade of experience in international nutrition and food systems research and policy, spanning 15 countries.
Advocating for the policy change required to ensure nutritious and climate-friendly diets are affordable, available and accessible to all is a passion, and has underpinned her career as a nutritionist.
As the Policy and Advocacy Manager at Alexandra Rose Charity, Amy leads the charity’s policy and public affairs activities, influencing local and national decision-makers on the critical links between poverty, diet, and health, ensuring that the meaningful change the charity’s projects are creating is widely communicated.
Amy says: “My upbringing as part of a farming family, with a deep connection to food, has strongly shaped my commitment to improving food systems on a global scale. I believe my background, expertise, and dedication to driving positive change in food policy make me well-suited to serve as a Trustee for Sustain, where I can advise the alliance on how best to develop and advance policies that prioritise healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems for all.”
Amy serves in a Trustee role-share position with Mark Ainsworth
Declaration of interest: Alexandra Rose Charity is a funded partner in the Bridging the Gap programme, led by Sustain and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund
Jyoti Fernandes
Landworkers Alliance
The Landworkers Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of LWA members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone. Jyoti Fernandes is part of the LWA’s Coordinating Group and an agroecological smallholder farmer.
Jyoti says, “I have worked closely with Sustain on many campaigns to build a fairer food and farming system. I would like to bring diverse voices together- uplifted by Sustain, to work for food justice where everyone, regardless of income, background or where they live has access to healthy, affordable, sustainably produced food. We also need to bring more people into farming and food projects from diverse backgrounds, start more community farms, and community food projects. I believe in being proactive in creating opportunities for people from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds to create social and political change, and serve on the board of Sustain as a link point for getting people involved.”
Role-share with Ele Saltmarsh of FLAME, the youth branch of Landworkers Alliance
Declaration of interest: Sustain sometimes works with LWA on funded projects.
Kerry Geldart
Oral Health Foundation
Kerry Geldart has worked collaboratively with Trustees for almost 20 years, developing five-year strategic reviews and harnessing Trustees' expertise, to build impactful and measurable implementation plans.
To do this successfully, she has honed the principles of strategic leadership, to ensure the strategic ambitions were aligned with charitable objectives, financially viable, impactful and measurable. Working with Trustees, committees and teams of people from within and across organisations has helped her evolve an empathetic leadership style, as well as diplomacy and assertiveness to ensure competing agendas do not interfere with the desired outcomes of ambitious projects.
Working in both environmental and health sectors, Kerry has:
• Developed an in-depth knowledge of charity governance, finance, law and operations.
• Managed people across departments.
• Successfully grown and managed complex, multiple income streams.
• Collaborated on the development of public health campaigns.
• Led organisational change projects, such as the Review of the Chartered Environmentalist Competency Framework in collaboration with the Engineering Council and the Science Council; relocated multiple office teams and headquarters, delivered smooth transitions to home and hybrid working.
• Honed collaboration and partnership development skills and is adept at influencing and developing relationships across industry, the professions and policy makers, to enhance the impact of campaigns and their reach.
Declaration of interests: None
Dr Kawther Hashem
Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH)
Dr Kawther Hashem BSc MSc PhD RNutr (Public Health) is a Registered Nutritionist, is currently serving as a Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at Queen Mary University of London.
Additionally, she holds the position of Head of Research and Impact for the Action on Sugar project at Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH), a research charity organisation concerned with the effects of salt and sugar on health. Kawther is responsible for driving Action on Sugar’s research, advocacy and policy work on sugar and calorie reduction.
Kawther's educational background includes a BSc in Nutrition from King's College London. Since completing her studies, she has garnered valuable experience across diverse sectors, including the food industry, non-governmental organisations, and most recently, academia. In 2014, she successfully obtained a Masters in Food Policy from City University of London, followed by the completion of her PhD focusing on sugar reduction in early 2019 from Queen Mary University of London.
In addition to her current responsibilities, Kawther also serves as a visiting lecturer on nutrition and food policy at multiple universities in the UK and a Trustee for the charity Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming in the UK. Her expertise in the field often leads to invitations to provide commentary on nutrition-related topics in the media.
Declaration of interest: None
Tilly Jarvis
Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK)
Tilly is a Chartered Environmentalist and Senior Project Manager for Food and Farming at Students Organising for Sustainability.
SOS-UK is an award-winning charity that supports students and wider society to learn, act and lead for environmental justice. Each year, SOS-UK engages over 200,000 students, supports around 40,000 staff, and works with over 1,500 organisations. In her role, Tilly has led a variety of impactful food and farming projects in UK universities and colleges - from helping 65 student groups establish social enterprises selling sustainable food on their campus to organising farm visits and fostering campus food-growing initiatives.
Her current work includes running the University Fairtrade Award programme in partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation, and supporting farmers on university and college owned land to transition to agroecology, coordinating soil carbon research, and helping universities achieve their net zero targets.
Beyond SOS-UK, Tilly is a Director of Stockwood Community Benefit Society, an innovative community-owned organic and biodynamic farm and business park in Worcestershire.
She has a degree in law, a masters in Sustainable Development Advocacy, and was previously the Food Co-op Coordinator at Sustain building a network of food co-ops, buying groups and other community food enterprises across the UK.
Declaration of interest: SOS-UK sometimes works with Sustain on collaborative charitably funded projects
Katharine Jenner
Obesity Health Alliance
Katharine Jenner is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and Director of the Obesity Health Alliance.
She was formerly the Campaign Director of the award-winning salt reduction charity Action on Salt (CASH), its international arm World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) and Action on Sugar, which aims to reduce unnecessary sugars in the population's diet. She also runs the only charity dedicated to lowering the nation's blood pressure, Blood Pressure UK and is a Visiting Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at several UK universities. Katharine worked as a media strategist for several years and as such is very interested in developing innovative approaches to communicating public health. Formerly, Katharine was Chair of Sustain's Campaign for Better Hospital Food and SUGAR SMART.
Katharine is Chair of Sustain's Children's Food Campaign working party. Sustain is a member of the Obesity Health Alliance steering group.
Declaration of interest: Sustain works in partnership with OHA on a funded project - Recipe for Change
Shefalee Loth
Which?
Shefalee Loth is Principal Researcher and Writer at Which?, the UK’s largest independent, not-for-profit consumer organisation which aims to tackle consumer harm and make consumers as powerful as the organisations they deal with in their daily lives. Shefalee produces consumer focused food and nutrition content for Which? covering nutrition and health, food safety and authenticity, and sustainability.
Shefalee is a Public Health Nutritionist who has previously worked in research and for the NHS. In her role at Which? Shefalee has campaigned for better nutrition labelling, consumer-focused food law enforcement, and most recently saving our food standards in future trade deals. Shefalee was an advisory group member for Food Integrity, an EU funded project to combat food fraud and was Chair and trustee of the Caroline Walker Trust.
Declaration of interest: None
Rob Percival
Soil Association
Rob Percival is Head of Food Policy at the Soil Association, leading the organisation’s advocacy and campaigns for healthy and sustainable diets. He works closely with the Food for Life programme on procurement and school food policy, and is currently leading campaigns on intensive livestock, ultra-processed foods, and children’s food in popular attractions and high street restaurants.
Rob has worked with Sustain in a variety of contexts over the last (almost) decade to influence government policy on public procurement, children’s food, farming and land-use, and more.
Rob is an associate member of the Faculty of Public Health, sitting on their Food Special Interest Group. He is also a trustee of First Steps Nutrition Trust. His book, The Meat Paradox, which explores the tensions of the meat debate, was published in March 2022.
Declaration of interest: Rob is Trustee of the First Steps Nutrition Trust, a Sustain alliance member organisation. Sustain works with Soil Association on several funded projects, including the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics and the Sustainable Food Places programme
Mike Rayner
Sustainable Healthy Food Group, at the University of Oxford
Mike Rayner is Chair of Sustain. He is a Professor of Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford and he is a member of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, at the University of Oxford. The group carries out research into the promotion of healthier and more sustainable diets. Mike is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.
Declaration of interest: Mike is a member of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy evaluation team funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research. The Sustainable Healthy Food Group is collaborating with Sustain on a research programme called SHIFT funded by the Wellcome Trust for work on food and climate change and also in a research hub called THRIVING funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Ele Saltmarsh
FLAME, the youth branch of Landworkers Alliance
Ele Saltmarsh is a member of the Coordinating Group of FLAME, the youth branch of Landworkers Alliance (LWA). Ele supports campaigns for better food and farming through quantitative and model-based research, which has been used in support of agroecological policy proposals from a local to national scale.
Her background in academic research and community engagement underscores her commitment to advancing food and farming practices that prioritise health and the environment.
Working together with Jyoti Fernandes of the Landworkers Alliance, Ele says, “We possess a shared vision of a more equitable, sustainable, and healthier food system but have diverse skills and practical experience. This diversity and our unyielding dedication to this cause would greatly benefit Sustain in its efforts to advocate for positive change in food and farming practices.”
Ele serves in a Trustee role-share with Jyoti Fernandes, Landworkers Alliance
Declaration of interest: Sustain sometimes works with LWA on funded projects
Alison Swan Parente
School of Artisan Food
Alison Swan Parente studied social anthropology at LSE a very long time ago. She trained and worked as a child and adolescent psychotherapist in various settings in the USA and then the NHS for 35 years. She was Chair of the Trustees of the Women's Therapy Centre for many years and has sat on several Charity boards, both grant-giving and receiving.She founded the Welbeck Bakehouse in 2008 and the School of Artisan Food in 2009. She knows a bit about cooking from a lifetime of doing it, and a bit about education from her years of working with young people. She is particularly interested in food, health and obesity and the barriers to access to healthy food. She still has a lot to learn.
Alison is Chair of Sustain's Real Bread Campaign.
Declaration of interest: Owner of Welbeck Bakehouse, a member of Sustain's Real Bread Campaign
Nick Weir
Open Food Network
Nick Weir is Community Facilitator for the Open Food Network. He is a founder of Stroud Community Agriculture and Stroudco Food Hub. He helped to bring the Open Food Network (OFN) to the UK and now works as Community Facilitator with OFN UK and a Global Gardener supporting new countries to deploy OFN.
As a Plunkett specialist advisor, a Co-ops UK consultant and a DTA Wales mentor, Nick has supported the set-up and development of many CSA and food hub enterprises.
Nick says, “I am passionate about supporting communities to build short food supply chains and facilitating the development of food systems that address the needs of all beings. This includes building enterprises that address social inequalities and working towards removing the need for food banks.”
Role-share with Djenai Delerue of the Open Food Network
Declaration of interest: None
Victoria Williams
Food Matters
Victoria is co-founder and Director at Food Matters, a charity working to make healthy, sustainable, fair food become a reality for everybody, every day. Victoria’s expertise centres on food poverty and access issues particularly the effect of national policies on local food initiatives. Victoria has been working on sustainability and food poverty for over 20 years and her current focus is on prison food reform. Victoria is Chair of the board at Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, board member of the Brighton & Hove Allotment Federation and she sits on the Programme Management Board of the Sustainable Food Places Programme.
Victoria serves as Sustain's Treasurer.
Declaration of interest: Sustain works in partnership with Food Matters on funded projects, for example: the Sustainable Food Places programme and Food Roots.
Additional note: Sustain's chief executive Kath Dalmeny is a Trustee of Food Matters (an unpaid position)
Dee Woods
Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN)
Dee is an urban Afroecologist, Earth wisdom keeper and a food and farming action-ist who advocates for good food for all and a just, equitable food system challenging the systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities and food producers and co-creating solutions. Her work sits at the nexus of human rights, rights of nature, food sovereignty, agroecology, community, policy, decolonial research, reparations, cultural practise, spirituality, climate, and social justice.
They are the co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen in South Kilburn, London, a previous BBC Food and Farming Awards winner and Slow Food Ambassador. She currently sits on the Mayor's London Food Board and is a co-editor of A People's Food Policy. Dee is an Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, Coventry University in the People's Knowledge Group. They are a member of the Food Ethics Council, Chair of the Independent Food Aid Network, IFAN and interim Chair of A Growing Culture.
They are the Food Justice Policy Coordinator and a director of the Landworkers Alliance. Dee is a member of the LION, Land in Our Names collective, a founding member of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice and co-founder of the B.R.E.A.D Collective of activist/researchers and the African Caribbean Heritage Food Network. Dee is an advisor to the Farming the Future fund and FlowFunder with Be The Earth Foundation.
Dee has spoken around the world on food politics food governance and policy, and food justice issues. They are the current Western Europe Focal Point of the Civil Society and Indigenous People's Mechanism (CSIPM) Coordinating Committee for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS)
Pronouns she/they
Dee serves in a Trustee role-share position with Emma Österberg
Declaration of interest: Dee is also Food Justice Policy Coordinator for Landworkers Alliance. Sustain sometimes works with LWA on funded projects
