Sustain staff profiles

Kath is Chief Executive of Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming, since 2016 leading the alliance's response to Brexit and its profound implications for healthy and sustainable food, farming and fishing and developing the Campaign for a Better Food Britain. During the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Kath has been 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 with the Good Law Project and Doughty Street Chambers in launching a judicial review of the government's approach to children's holiday hunger during Covid-19.

Among many initiatives, Kath has helped to design and instigate: the Sustainable Fish Cities alliance campaign, which has now won pledges to serve 100% verifiably sustainable fish from caterers that together serve 1 billion meals a year; the Good Food for Our Money campaign and the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, which have won healthy and sustainable food standards for Whitehall, prisons and parts of the armed forces, and in NHS Standard Contracts for hospitals. Also the Good Food for London and Beyond the Food Bank reports, mapping uptake of good food schemes by London boroughs, for the benefit of citizens, food producers, farm animals and the environment, and encouraging healthy competition between local authorities.

2017 saw the launch of the Right to Food initiative, aiming to provide the legal foundations that would ensure that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, is able to eat well and not experience hunger.

From 2013 to 2017, Kath has been a senior project manager for the Sustainable Food Cities network, working with Food Matters and the Soil Association. She now sits on the steering group for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.

In 2018 she became a Commissioner for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, after having served on the steering group that led to its establishment.

From 2009 to 2012, she 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 several years she has also served as a member of, or advisor to, the London Food Board, under three consectuive 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 has a special interest in food, sustainability and climate change; is passionate about sustainable fish and fair trade; increasingly fascinated by the role cities can play in improving the food system; and also interested in how the benefits of healthier food and fairer trading conditions can be enjoyed more equitably by consumers and producers alike.

On a voluntary basis, Kath is a trustee of a community-run box scheme and farmers' market that runs an exciting new start-up mentoring programme (Growing Communities); and a not-for-profit food consultancy 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).

She is a proud not-for-profit shareholder in numerous community food initiatives, including Scotland the Bread, Fordhall Farm, the 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", 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 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.

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Since joining Sustain in 2004, Ben has helped launch the Food Power network and was a founding member of the Sustainable Food Cities network. Most recently he came up with the 50 Fountains Challenge (run in partnership with Refill), born out of the Sugar Smart campaign which he developed with the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. He worked with Jamie Oliver’s team to get the government to adopt a sugary drinks tax, and set up the award winning Children’s Health Fund which piloted the levy with restaurants.

Between 2004 – 2013, Ben led on Sustain’s London work: editting the free ethical London food magazine The Jellied Eel, shortlisted for a Guild of Food Writers award; running the consultation on the Mayor of London's Food Strategy; and developing Sustain’s urban agriculture work - coming up with Capital Growth, supported by the Mayor of London, to create 2,012 food growing spaces in London by 2012, and following that the Big Dig, which encourages volunteering on community food gardens around the UK.

Ben is a trustee of the charity School Food Matters, has been a member of the London Food Board, chair of Growing Greenwich, part of the selection panel for the Big Lottery Fund’s local food grants programme and used to run a Farmers’ Market.

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Sarah is Programme Director for Sustain having joined in in 2009, as part of the Capital Growth team who successfully supported 2,012 new community food growing spaces in London. Sarah has developed new areas of work at Sustain including the national Big Dig programme and work on our Growing Health project. She currently oversees most of the London programme of work, run under the London Food Link umbrella and represents Sustain on the London Food Board.

Prior to Sustain her roles have included running community regeneration projects, including at Groundwork East London where she lead on a series of environment based projects.

Sarah was also the Strategic Manager of the Newham Food Access Partnership, where years she coordinated the implementation a Food and Nutrition Strategic Plan. Sarah has a Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development, achieved through the Forum for the Future programme.

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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.

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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 Finance Manager, 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.

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Fran Bernhardt is a Children's Food Campaign Coordinator where she specialises in restricting the sales and marketing of unhealthy food to children. Since 2018 she has been advising the Mayor of London's team to write and implement their groundbreaking Healthier Food Advertising Policy across the Transport for London network (AKA "the junk food ad ban"). In addition, she now supports London boroughs to change their advertising policies.

Prior to this, Fran coordinated Sugar Smart where she supported local areas up and down the country to run campaigns to reduce sugar overconsumption. From 2018-19, she coordinated the Tower Hamlets Food Partnership where she developed the role and led a team of researchers to complete local food research. Before campaigning full-time, she taught fortnightly plant-based community cookery classes at Made in Hackney where she demonstrated how to cook seasonal, cheap, healthy and tasty meals.

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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. 

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Hannah joined Sustain in August 2021 to take forward the London Food Link network, with a focus on Good Food Enterprise.  Her role involves 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. 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 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.

Orla is Head of Public Affairs for Sustain and also leads the communications for Sustain’s work on Good Food Trade. She is working hard to promote the opportunities and threats for food, farming and fishing as we exit the EU so we all have decent food to eat at the end of the process.

She has over 15 years’ experience of communications strategy and planning, media handling, corporate communications, public affairs and reputation management in two Whitehall Departments, the private and third sectors. Orla joined Sustain from LEON restaurants, where she led a campaign to save universal infant free school meals, an issue which helped shift voter intentions in the 2017 national elections.

She also led on the communications for the launch of LEON on mainland Europe. Before joining LEON, she was head of campaign strategy and chief press officer at the Department for Education, advising ministers on communications around high priority areas such as changes to testing, the national curriculum, teacher recruitment and the school food plan.

Maddie leads on Sustain's communications strategy and social media, as well as supporting campaigns and promoting the work of alliance members. She also manages Roots to Work, a platform for job opportunities in the field of good food. 

The rest of her time is spent on FoodSHIFT2030, an EU project supporting innovative food systems across Europe as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and information between sector bodies and project participants.

She previously coordinated a number of Sustain's London projects, including Capital Growth (2015-2017), Good Food for London (2017-2019) and Good Food Retail (2019-2021). In addition, she ran network communications and learning for UK food poverty alliances with Food Power (2017-2021), as well as developed the Food Learning Forum (2019-2021) for a cohort of grantees from The National Lottery Community Fund.

Before joining Sustain, she worked as an advocate for access to healthcare for vulnerable migrants in London with Doctors of the World, and in Montreal primary schools developing a sustainability curriculum. She has a MSc in Health, Community and Development (2014) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she focused on social action, participatory research and urban public health.

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Vicki Hird MSc FRES is an award winning expert, author, strategist and senior manager who has been working on environment, food and farming issues for over 30 years. As part- time Head of Sustainable Farming at Sustain, Vicki manages the farm team, policy, research and related campaigning and provides comment and guidance on these issues.

Vicki’s new book: Rebugging the Planet, published on 16 September 2021, is a homage to insects and other invertebrates, why they are so essential to our ecosystem and what we can do to help them.

Prior to this role, she was director of Campaigns and Policy at War on Want. Previously she was the Senior Campaigner heading up the Land use, Food and Water Programme for Friends of the Earth. She was Policy Director of Sustain, 1999 – 2004 which she founded in 2000 after merging SAFE alliance which she ran with the National Food Alliance. Vicki also runs an independent consultancy on campaign strategy and research (including for RSPB, WSPA, The Sustainable Development Commission, Greenpeace, The Plunkett Foundation and HEAL).

She has launched many major food and environment campaigns, from local to global in scope, has blogged frequently and published numerous reports and articles on the sustainability of food systems and a book, ‘Perfectly Safe to Eat?’ (Women’s Press 2000).

She has an academic background in pest management and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. Vicki is on the board of the Eating Better Alliance and has sat on numerous charity boards and government advisory groups over the years.

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After a decade of working with diverse food communities in Spain and Portugal, Mayya returned to London to join Sustain in May 2021. Whether it's challenging local chefs to showcase what sustainable food can taste like or connecting peri-urban organic farmers with inner-city consumers, she's putting community gardens at the centre of all good food conversations to inspire positive behaviour change throughout the food chain.

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Alan is a graphic and web designer, with passion for music, multisensory design and sustainability.

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Stephanie (currently on maternity leave) is leading on Sustain’s communications strategy as the organisation enters an exciting new phase of growth.

The rest of her time is spent on FoodSHIFT2030, an EU project supporting innovative food systems across Europe as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and information between sector bodies and project participants.

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Rakhee joined Sustain in June 2021 (on maternity cover) and is coordinating Sustain’s London Food Poverty Campaign which highlights and encourages sustainable responses to food poverty, particularly where they address its root causes.

Rakhee is a public health practitioner and prior to joining Sustain worked in several different roles across sectors addressing health inequalities and advocating for equity of provision. Other inequalities work has included working with refugee groups and NGOs tackling caste-based discrimination.  She has worked with local community groups in Tower Hamlets to improve access to healthy and culturally appropriate foods, more recently moving into policy roles, both in London and Copenhagen, where she spent three years living with her family.  

Rob works on Sustain’s ‘Fringe Farming’ project to increase access to land for agroecological farming at the edge of UK cities. He has been a community food grower, educator and organiser based in London for over 10 years, and is focused on the co-generation of food systems connected by social justice, ecology and peoples’ knowledge.

Rob has collaborated on initiatives such as the policy paper ‘Towards a Resilient Food System for London’, the UK Food Sovereignty Gathering in 2015, and ‘Where does our food come from?’ a workshop series on food and social justice in 2016.

From 2015-2020 Rob was part of a FarmStart team that developed a peri-urban food growing cooperative in North-East London on seven acres of public land. During this period Rob developed participatory action research with colleagues to reflect on the social, organisational and economic learnings of the co-operative endeavour. This process, coupled with the co-facilitation of a community-led food policy at an emerging community food hub nearby, were part of Rob’s action research PhD which aimed to evolve urban agroecology with deep democracy (Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience).

These experiences and learnings directly inform his approach and involvement in the ‘Fringe Farming’ project.

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Fi returned to Sustain in May 2020 to coordinate Capital Growth (having worked on the Food and Mental Health Campaign all the way back in 2008!). She used to coordinate Growing Communities’ veg scheme and learning programme.

Fi’s background includes setting up community gardens with schools and residents’ associations as well as running a small ethical catering company. When she’s not with Capital Growth, she teaches with Made in Hackney’s community cookery programme and runs an intergenerational community café at a centre in East London.

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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.

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Chris joined Capital Growth in August 2021 as a Community Grower based at the Regents Park and Kensington Gardens allotment sites and hopes to inspire people to grow-their-own through public engagement and the Royal Parks volunteer programme.

Trained in commercial food growing with Organiclea, Chris has been involved with other growing sites across North London and worked as a maintenance gardener for elderly residents in his local community.

In March 2021 he took over the world's most neglected allotment plot and can often be found there making vain attempts to rid it of brambles and bindweed!

Morven (currently on maternity leave) coordinates Sustain’s London Food Poverty Campaign which highlights and encourages sustainable responses to food poverty, particularly where they address the root causes of food poverty.

Prior to working at Sustain Morven’s background was in the New Economy Movement, housing activism and environmental campaigning. She has organised grassroots campaigns with renters rights group the Tenants Union, worked on strategy development with the international student led movement Rethinking Economics, and has done community organising with Extinction Rebellion.

Morven coordinates Sustain’s London Food Poverty Campaign which highlights and encourages sustainable responses to food poverty, particularly where they address the root causes of food poverty.

Prior to working at Sustain Morven’s background was in the New Economy Movement, housing activism and environmental campaigning. She has organised grassroots campaigns with renters rights group the Tenants Union, worked on strategy development with the international student led movement Rethinking Economics, and has done community organising with Extinction Rebellion.

Sofia is the Sustainable Food Places Policy and Campaigns Coordinator and leads on driving local and national action on key food issues for the network. This includes coordinating the Veg Cities campaign, developing new campaigns, amplifying the voice of SFP members at a national level and advocating on specific issues where local priorities need national action.

Sofia has been working at Sustain since 2015 and during that time she led the roll out of the Sugar Smart campaign, from an idea piloted by a hand full of pioneer cities, to a national campaign with over 50 cities and other local areas involved. She coordinated the Good Food for London report which shines a light on action on good food by London boroughs and was a trustee of the Eating Better alliance.

Her background is as an animal welfare, food and environmental campaigner. She grew up on a farm in the north of Portugal and has a degree in Agronomy from the Technical University of Lisbon.

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Ren works for Sustainable Food Places on the Sugar Smart campaign, the Good to Grow network, and supports food partnerships develop work on sustainable food economies. She previously coordinated Feedback’s Gleaning Network and is a Registered Associate Public Health Nutritionist.

Oliver joined Sustain in September 2020 and has a background in policy. He will be focusing on Sustain’s Parliamentary work by engaging with key stakeholders and monitoring policy developments.

He has a passion for politics, sustainable food and music.

Simon coordinates Food Power, a four-year programme supporting food poverty alliances to tackle food poverty in their areas. The programme focuses on highlighting and encouraging sustainable responses to food poverty, particularly where they address the root causes of food poverty.

The programme is delivered by Sustain and Church Action on Poverty and funded by the National Lottery. Simon previously oversaw Sustain’s London Food Poverty Campaign.

Simon also instigated and now manages Sustain's Meals on Wheels campaign, which aims to secure the policies and services that would support thousands of older people every day to stay independent in their own homes and enrich their lives.

Prior to working at Sustain, Simon was the lead officer for the London Assembly’s Zero Hunger City investigation into food poverty in the capital. Simon has also held a number of roles in the third and public sector, working to influence policy and practice in a range of areas, including inequality and poverty, disability and ageing, health and social care, social security, and employment and skills. Simon has a BA from the University of Cambridge (French and Italian).

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Cecily joined Sustain in September 2020 as the Communications and Network Coordinator for the Food Power project and the Food Learning Forum (on maternity cover).

For Food Power, Cecily provides communications, resources, webinars and more for food poverty alliances around the UK. This package of support helps the alliances to design and deliver sustainable, innovative responses to food poverty and food access and learn from fellow alliances to help tackle the root causes of poverty.

The Food Learning forum brings together a group of organisations that have been funded by the National Lottery Community Fund to deliver food focused projects, either on food access or food sustainability, to learn and share ideas and issues. Cecily coordinates this forum by organising events that allow forum members to discuss strategic issues and decipher how these can be incorporated into future work.

Before joining Sustain, Cecily managed policy and campaigns for the environmental coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link and was a climate campaigner at the climate action charity, Possible.

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.

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Ruth co-ordinates 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.

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James joined Sustain in September 2020 and works on farming policy and campaigns. Previously, he has worked in farm advice for Natural England, supporting farmers into sustainable whole farm systems.

He has also worked in farming policy for Defra and the National Farmers' Union. Alongside this, he also likes to spend time on his step-family's Cumbrian farm.

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Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. His work involves running the Campaign’s international supporter network, creating and running initiatives including Sourdough September, Real Bread Week, Together We Rise (therapeutic/social baking), calling for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf labelling and marketing laws, and No Loaf Lost (surplus and waste reduction), as well as the Lessons in Loaf and Bake Your Lawn programmes for schools.

He’s the author of the books Slow Dough: Real Bread and Knead to Know, plus numerous bready reports, and editor of True Loaf magazine. From 2014-18 he 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 Championships and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship.

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Vera joined the team in 2017 and works on Sustainable Food Cities supporting cities with their Sugar Smart campaigns. She has previously coordinated the Love Food Hate Waste campaign at the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, which included a very successful Feeding the 5000 Brighton event. She has also coordinated the Sussex Gleaning Network with Feedback, and co-founded the Food Waste Collective.

In addition to her work with Sustain, Vera currently coordinates Brighton’s Surplus Food Network and is on the board of directors with This is Rubbish. When not campaigning, Vera leads foraging sessions and knits wonky vegetables.

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