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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Katherine is one of the team that runs the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics. She has a Social and Political Studies BA from the University of Sheffield, a Magazine Journalism MA from City University and a CIPR Advanced Certificate in PR. Katherine believes passionately in the links between food, health and wellbeing.

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Janelle joined the Capital Growth team in 2017, and works mainly on the London Grows buddy scheme, Big Dig and networking events helping connect community gardens and urban growers across London.

For the last five years, Janelle has also been working as a grower on several rooftop gardens across London maximising the food growing potential of urban spaces and providing food for restaurants and pubs.

She is also a community gardener who has worked on several projects in the city, working with volunteers, delivering workshops and sharing skills and knowledge about sustainable urban food production, nature conservation, and gardening for health and wellbeing.

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Sam is working to further embed the good food agenda in Southwark, with an emphasis on tackling food poverty, promoting SUGAR SMART and bringing water fountains to the borough.

Sam has been part of the public health team at Southwark Council, leading on creating a Food Insecurity Action Plan for the borough. She has a Masters in Public Health (with a specialism in Health Promotion) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Wholesome, ethical and delicious food is a huge passion of hers as it is the lever to so many important things: healthier lives, a healthier planet, community building and pleasure. As well as good food, Sam loves travel, being a health nut and doing creative bits and bobs.

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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Orla leads the communications for Sustain’s Brexit campaign. 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.

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With a background in marketing and PR, Maria is and always has been passionate about sustainable food. As project officer for Growing Health, Maria is looking at how community food growing can be routinely used by the health and social care services as a way of promoting health and wellbeing for a range of individuals and population groups.

Outside her Sustain work, Maria is also helping to set up a local veg bag scheme (www.localgreens.org) supported by the Growing Communities Start-up programme, and was formerly chief executive officer of Slow Food UK.

She is also a keen food grower and as a Master Gardener, she works with the local community to help them to grow their own. Great-tasting real food is pivotal in every facet of Maria's life - she even uses her kayak to go foraging.

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Maddie coordinates the annual Good Food for London report and the national Food Power network, which supports local food poverty alliances across the UK. She previously managed Capital Growth at Sustain from 2015-2017.

She has a Masters 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.

Previous to Sustain, she has worked as an advocate for access to healthcare for vulnerable migrants in London, and in Montreal public schools developing a new sustainability curriculum. When not at the office you can find her cooking, climbing, cycling or knitting.

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Vicki Hird is an award winning author, expert, strategist and senior manager who has been working on environment, food and farming issues for over 25 years. As part- time Sustainable Farm Campaign Coordinator at Sustain, Vicki manages the farm policy and related campaigning and provides comment and guidance on these issues.

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 and Policy Director of Sustain. She was Policy Director of Sustain, 1999 – 2004 and has been an expert consultant for NGOs and institutions (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 published 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 and the RSA. Vicki is on the board of Pesticides Action Network, and the Keo Foundation, was chair of the Eating Better Alliance and has sat on numerous government advisory groups over the years. She also runs an independent consultancy undertaking campaigning and research.

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Tilly coordinates the Food Co-op project at Sustain, building on previous work to create the largest network of community food co-ops and food buying groups across the UK; her main focus is working in partnership with the National Union of Students to train and mentor students setting up new food co-ops and food preserving enterprises.

Tilly has spent over ten years working with 16-25 year olds on local and international community initiatives promoting sustainable living, has an MA in Sustainable Development Advocacy, Chairs Worcester Roots Foundation (a youth-led environmental charity supporting young people to set up and run social enterprises) and is on the Board of Directors of a community owned organic and biodynamic farm in Worcestershire.

Spare time passions include global family travel without flying and breeding crickets as a sustainable protein source.

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Becky joined Sustain in March 2009.  She helps develop the Sustain website and designs materials for print, including our Jellied Eel and True Loaf magazines.

Becky has worked in the environmental charity sector since 2002, initally on the Good Beach Guide for the Marine Conservation Society and then on rural policy for the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

More recently she was the IT and publishing manager for Pesticide Action Network UK before becoming freelance in 2007.  In addition to her work with Sustain Becky also works for Pesticide Action Network Europe.

Abbi joined the team in April to assist Quoc the Head of Finance with all things finance and admin. She is a recycling and anti-food waste enthusiast and volunteers some Sundays with Foodcycle to serve up surplus food to the community.

She is also a keen disco souper and hoping to get her glean on with Feedback in the coming months. Having experience in ecology and conservation, Abbi is now turning her attention towards issues in sustainability and is especially interested in Sustain’s campaigns that integrate these areas, for example sustainable farming and sustainable fish cities.

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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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Lailah 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.

In addition to working at Sustain, Lailah is the Policy and Research Coordinator for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa. Prior to these roles she worked for a number of International Development organisations and NGOs, most recently as Programmes Officer for Muslim Aid where she managed the INGO’s UK based education, livelihoods, healthcare and advocacy programmes.

Sofia has been working at Sustain since 2015 and now coordinates the Veg Cities campaign, which encourages local areas to grow, cook, sell and save more vegetables.

In 2017 she was involved in 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.

Between 2015-2016, she coordinated the Good Food for London report which shines a light on what London boroughs are doing in terms of good food initiatives as well as the Cage Free Capital campaign which encourages London Boroughs and visitor attractions to source cage free eggs.

Her background is as an animal welfare, food and environmental campaigner in organisations such as the World Animal Protection, Pesticide Action Network Europe and the Portuguese conservation organisation Liga para a Proteção da Natureza. Sofia is passionate about good, honest food, grew up in a farm, and has a degree in Agronomy from the Technical University of Lisbon.

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Imogen joined Sustain at the end of 2017 as the coordinator for the new Right to Food project. The Right to Food Project is a collaboration between Sustain, Just Fair, Nourish Scotland, and the Institute of Health and Society of the University of Newcastle. Sustain’s work on this project is funded by the Baring Foundation.

Imogen brings with her years of experience working in food, including as co-director of a food waste project in Brighton, food coordinator for refugee camps in Greece, and working with communities displaced by large scale industrial farming in South America. Imogen has also worked for a London based human rights charity and on projects providing legal and medical support to unaccompanied refugee children across Europe.

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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.

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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Julie is the Garden and Training Coordinator for Capital Growth, London's food growing network. She manages the Capital Growth show garden in Regent’s Park, whose purpose is to inspire people to grow food and to demonstrate organic growing practices.

She also runs food growing and community garden management training and writes gardening tips for the Capital Growth website and The Jellied Eel magazine. Previously Julie worked with the Ethical Eats project, tackling food waste in the catering sector.

Julie studied ecophysiology and animal behaviour at Strasbourg University in France, before completing a Masters in environmental management from the Eco-Conseil Institute. Julie is part of The Royal Park Guild and a Director of the London Freedom Seed Bank.

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Chris coordinates Capital Growth, London’s Food Growing Network of over 2,700 community food growing spaces. He joined Sustain in September 2017, following previous roles with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), developing Green Gyms across the UK, and a career in IT and telecommunications.

During his time at TCV, Chris launched the Green Gym® in Camden and developed and led a new health and education team for TCV based in London. He also commissioned new Green Gyms and health innovations across the UK, including Pro-Active Minds, a partnership between TCV and Mind, funded through the Department of Health, Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund.

Chris is also a Director of Edible Landscapes London, based in Finsbury Park and a regular volunteer with a number of London food growing projects including The Castle Garden in Hackney. Chris is passionate about getting people outdoors, connecting with nature, growing food and foraging. He runs workshops in the heritage conservation skill of hedgelaying and enjoys getting outdoors at every opportunity to garden, forage, run, cycle and hike.

He has a BSc (Hons) degree in Environmental Management from the University of Dundee and is a Prince2 Project Management Practitioner. Chris also completed a level 2 award in Forest Gardening with Edible Landscapes in 2015.

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Emma Weatherill is an award winning journalist who specialises in food and farming news. Before working as the News Editor for Sustain she spent 10 years as a broadcast journalist at the BBC. She began her career on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour before going on to produce and report for The Food Programme, Farming Today, On Your Farm and other Radio 4 programmes.

In 2011 Emma won a scholarship to study at The Salt Institute in Maine where she was taught radio documentary skills by a This American Life producer. She won the Missouri Review Audio Contest 2012 for a documentary she made whilst in the US. Several of her Radio 4 programmes have been shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers and the Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards.

When not working for Sustain Emma spends her time with her two young children, playing in cardboard box boats and pretending to catch (sustainable) fish.
 

Ruth co-ordinates Sustainable Fish City, a campaign which encourages businesses to adopt a fully sustainable fish policy, and thereby help transform the way the world's oceans are fished. The campaign began in London, inspired by the Food Vision of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is now being adopted by cities across the UK.

Ruth joined Sustain from the Marine Stewardship Council, and is a graduate of the University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, where she was awarded the Fishmongers' Company Scholarship.

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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 Law 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 The Great Taste Awards, The World Bread Awards, BOOM Awards and the Cateys. 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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