The Top 20 ‘most influential’ people in foodservice have been chosen for 2024, a group of names that truly reflects the sector as a whole, as well as a number of people whose work addresses issues such as health, allergens, the food system, and procurement.
This year the intellectual heft of the group has been enhanced with the inclusion of two university professors whose work offers both insight and inspiration.
Step forward Professor Kevin Morgan from Cardiff University, the author of a book titled ‘Serving The Public – The Good food revolution in schools, hospitals and Prisons’, which is being published next month.
Joining him among the Top 20 this year is Professor Don Bundy, at the Center for Global Health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He leads a UN-backed global research effort to provide evidence-based guidance on strengthening national school meals programmes.
An eye-catching addition to the 2025 list is the Mayor Of London, Sadiq Khan, who has forced himself into the school meals debate by his decision to fund free meals for all primary age children in London.
All of those on the list have been invited to the House of Commons on January 30th to air their views on key industry issues at a roundtable. With no fewer than 13 new faces around the table, there will be plenty of fresh ideas and thinking to inform the discussion.
The 'most influential list' includes:
- Judith Gregory, chair of LACA, With around 3m lunches served every day in 27,000 schools, the LACA network is the country's largest provider of school catering.
- Jayne Jones, chair-elect of PSC Alliance. With a background that includes school, care and hospital feeding the new leader of the Alliance is ideally placed to lead it forwards into 2025.
- Denise Bean, head of catering at HM Prisons in England and Wales. She is responsible for feeding more than 80,000 prisoners a day on an average budget of £2.70 for three meals a day.
- Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union. Agriculture represent the start of the ‘farm to fork’ journey and UK farmers produce 60% by volume of the food we eat.
- Iain Robertson, chair of the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA), who is on a mission to make the association ‘more inclusive’ by attracting the next generation of caterers and leaders to join.
- Nicky Joiner, chair of ASSIST FM, the organisation that represents public sector FM services providers across all 32 local authorities in Scotland, who deliver catering and cleaning services in schools and care homes.
- Anna Taylor, executive director Food Foundation, which she joined in 2015. The foundation produce surveys and reports to apply pressure to Governments for more action on child poverty, including free school meals (FSM) for all primary-age children
- Kevin Morgan, the author of a new book titled: ‘Serving the Public – The Good Food Revolution in Schools, Hospitals and Prisons’, Kevin is professor of governance and development in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University
- Mo Baines, director of the the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), a benchmarking organisation for local authority service providers whose research is used by LACA, among others, in getting data on meal costs and staffing rates.
- Amanda Pettingill, chair of The University Caterers Organisation (TUCO), joined the board in 2015 and become vice-chair in 2022, before taking over this autumn from Phil Rees-Jones. She has an abundance of industry experience, having worked within contract catering, hotels, sport and the education sectors.
- Molly Shaher, chair of the Professional Association of Catering Education (PACE), sees her role as encouraging catering educating institutions to work together to manage the challenges of continuing change. Her members are struggling with course closures as colleges look to cut costs by axing expensive-to-run training kitchens and also saving money budgeted for ingredients for catering students.
- Nadim & Tanya Ednan-Laperouse, founders Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, tragically lost their daughter Natasha following an allergic reaction. Having successfully campaigned for improved labelling legislation – known as Natasha’s Law – they then set up the Natasha Research Foundation to help people with allergies safely manage the condition.
- Don Bundy is a professor of epidemiology and development at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and director of the Global Research Consortium for School Health & Nutrition. He is also an adviser to the UN World Food Programme, leading a global research effort to provide evidence-based guidance to the 107 member states of the School Meals Coalition.
- Robin Mills is the chief executive of Compass Group UK & Ireland, appointed to his current role in 2019. Under him Compass has played a key role in the national effort to tackle Covid, including a redeployment of staff from sports and business sectors to hospitals and defence sites. He represents the foodservice sector, including public sector catering, on the Defra Food & Drink Sector Council.
- Neel Radia, chair of National Association of Care Catering (NACC), and into the second year of his fourth term head of the organisation for care homes and meals on wheels providers. Under him the NACC has been invited by the Government to take part in a ‘national conversation to develop a health service fit for the future’.
- Alexia Robinson is the founder Love British Food, the group she started which organises the annual British Food Fortnight to promote the use of more British food in the public sector. She has started working groups for school chefs, with LACA, and for hospital caterers, with the HCA and the Hospital Food Review Team.
- Karen Beech, the commercial lead - food category, Crown Commercial Service, has been charged with overseeing the roll-out of the Government’s new Buying Better Food and Drink Framework. This aims to offer a single site option to help caterers order a range of food, drink and equipment items that automatically comply with required standards.
- Phil Shelley, the senior Operational Manager – Soft FM & National Lead for Net Zero Food at NHS England, is a former chair of the Hospital Caterers Association (HCA). He has overseen the creation of the NHS Chef Competition, which has just celebrated its fourth year with the biggest number of entries yet and helped drive the creation of the NHS Chef Academy
- Katie Pettifer, interim chief executive of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) joined the agency in July 2021 and stepped up as the interim chief executive in August this year. The agency is being linked with the idea of monitoring compliance with School Food Standards as part changes to the Ofsted school inspections regime.
- Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. Sadiq made a bold decision to help families during the cost-of-living crisis by offering free school meals to all primary pupils for a year. He then followed up this September by extending the scheme for a second year.
Read more about the ‘most influential’ in the December Magazine of Public Sector Catering. If you don’t receive a free copy of the magazine but would like to, visit here.
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