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AFTER DINNER SPEAKER

Leon Lloyd, Former England International Rugby Player

Leon Lloyd is a former England international rugby player, who has played at the highest level and against elite players such as Jonah Lomu, (and survived!). He won 11 trophies whilst playing with the English and European Champions, Leicester Tigers. Since retiring from playing the sport, he has gained a first-class honours degree in Leadership and Management, followed by an MBA receiving a Distinction. As a Ph.D. candidate in Leadership and Change Management, he has gone on to work with many global organisations such as the Premier League, the UK Special Forces, Microsoft, and AMEX.

Leon grew up in Coventry and still maintains a dream to score the winning goal in an FA Cup Final for Coventry City. As the eldest of four children Leon left school at 16 to pursue a professional sports career and has benefitted from lots of support and guidance along his journey. As result of this, giving back to others less fortunate is high on his personal agenda and has been an Ambassador and Business Mentor for the Princes Trust since 2004 as well as being a Patron for Action Deafness. He is a co-founder of the Switch the Play Foundation, the first UK charity that assists professional sports people transition away from their sport. Having been the CEO that successfully led that organisation he stepped down in 2021 to pursue some of his other passions but remains an active Ambassador.

 

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Tom Bradshaw, President, National Farmers Union

Tom Bradshaw, the President of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales, farms in partnership with his wife, Emily, and his parents in North Essex. Alongside a small family-owned farm they run a contract farming business growing a range of combinable crops. Tom was Chair of the National Crops Board before becoming part of the Presidential team in 2020, serving two years as Vice Chair and two years as Deputy Chair.

 

Simon Conway, CEO, Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd

Simon Conway is HCP’s part time CEO. Simon comes from a family farming background and has worked within the fresh produce and horticulture sector for 35 years. He holds a masters in business administration. During his long career with Vitacress Ltd, he was commercial director and then managing director of Vitacress Herbs ltd. Most recently, he was managing director of Vitacress Salads Ltd,  which grows open field, leafy salads, spinach, watercress and herbs at farming locations in southern England as well as in Portugal and Spain. Simon was vice chairman of West Sussex Growers association for four years and is a business mentor for Flourish in Food.

Kim Parker, Crop Protection Scientist, Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd

Kim Parker is the lead crop protection scientist for field vegetables and seed potato at HCP, coordinating minor use and emergency authorisation applications for these sectors. Following a PhD in plant pathology and several years’ experience in tropical agriculture, Kim worked for ADAS from 2000 researching crop diseases of field vegetables and protected edibles. Kim then joined AHDB in 2016 as a research manager and crop protection scientist, and has specialised in minor-use plant protection product regulation since 2021.

 

Ged Futter, Director, The Retail Mind Ltd

With almost thirty years of retail industry experience gained in store, supply chain and as a Senior Buying Manager at one the UK’s largest grocery retailers, Ged’s background is unique. He regularly provides industry insight via TV, Radio & various print publications including The Grocer, The Times & The Guardian. Since 2015, Ged has been providing suppliers with training on how to work better with UK Retailers. He is the UK’s GSCOP expert having saved clients more than £60m in the past three years. Ged’s unique position as an ex-Retailer working solely with suppliers allows him to speak candidly about the UK Grocery market offering an insider’s view on their behaviours & tactics.

 

Duncan Williams, Principal – Food and Regenerative Agriculture, Forum for the Future

Duncan leads the regenerative agriculture work at Forum For the Future, an international NGO that uses systems thinking to shape change across food, energy, and business. Current projects across fruit, veg, and dairy aim to better understand the needs of the industry, and to build supply-chain readiness for the transition to regenerative agriculture. Duncan started his career as a dairy vet, working across the USA, NZ, and China, before returning to the UK as a farm consultant. He has spent the last 9 years working with farmers and supply chain businesses to support their sustainability journeys. He has led benchmarking schemes and carbon footprint programmes, is a Nuffield Scholar, and holds a Master’s in Sustainability.

 

Andy Richardson, Managing Director, Allium & Brassica Agronomy

Andy is MD and Senior Agronomist at Allium & Brassica Agronomy, based in Kirton, Lincolnshire.  Andy advises both in the UK and overseas on bulb onions, shallots, garlic and leeks as well as the full range of brassica vegetables.  With over 35 years’ experience growing onions you would think he would know what he’s doing by now!  Andy teaches on various BASIS/ARTIS courses and is a member of both the British Onion and Brassica Growers Association R&D Committees.

 

Jens K. Kjeldahl, Director, Brdr. Kjeldahl

Jens is 57 years old and has been an onion grower for 38 years on the island of Samsø. He operates the business in partnership with his brother, Søren P. Kjeldahl. Their operation includes farming of onions, potatoes, asparagus, apples, pears, celeriac, cabbage and cereals rotation. Jens is also chairman of the Danish Onion Association.

 

Pernille Kynde, Vegetable Advisor, HortiAdvice

Pernille is a vegetable consultant at HortiAdvice, specialising for the last 7 years in carrots, parsnips and beetroots. Before that, working for 3 years in other crops, mostly lettuce and different kinds of cabbage. Pernille’s main role is consulting with customers, with focus on growing vegetables and everything included within that process. Also taking care of administration of certifications like Global Gap, control of organic growth and working a lot with sustainability in all parts of the growing and production process. Pernille obtained a Masters degree in Agrobiology Horticulture from Aarhus University in 2015, with the two main theses about pointed cabbage and carrots.

 

David Pye, Sustainability Manager and Farm Manager, Huntapac

David was brought up on a mixed farm in Lancashire, with livestock, cereals and root crops, and he has also spent time farming abroad. His role at Huntapac is split between compliance and traceability on produce, farm assurance and working on projects targeting carbon emissions reduction. David is married with two children and lives near Liverpool.

 

Farina Lurz, Market Expert Horticulture, Agramarkt Informations-Gesellschaft mbH

Farina works as a market expert at AMI GmbH. In this position, she supports the horticulture department in its day-to-day business and works on internal company projects. She also holds web seminars and lectures. In her work, she has a special focus on the national and international onion market. She is an author of market analyses, product studies and articles in various trade journals. She is familiar with both theory and practice thanks to her studies in agricultural sciences, specialising in plant sciences, and her intensive involvement in the sale of fruit and vegetables in a direct marketing company.

Lena Pollul, Market Expert Horticulture, Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft mbH

Lena has been working as a market expert in the horticulture department since March 2022. She is the author of market reports and analyses in various trade journals. Her focus is on the market for carrots and salads. In addition to the day-to-day business, she is also primarily responsible for the fruit and vegetable market statistics, which gives her an overall view of the market situation in Germany.

 

Dr Mercedes Torres Torres, Head Of Machine Learning, B-Hive Innovations

Mercedes obtained her PhD in Computer Vision at the University of Nottingham in 2014. She then moved on to work as a postdoctoral researcher under a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded project, where she specialised in the design and development of deep learning and computer vision models for small and skewed datasets. She was an Assistant Professor at the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham from 2016 to 2021, where she published her research in to peer-reviewed papers and conferences, and obtained grant funding from EPSRC, InnovateUK, Huawei, and Nottingham City Council, amongst others. In 2021, she joined B-Hive Innovations as the Head of Machine Learning. In her role, she has managed a wide portfolio of commercially funded and publicly funded projects tackling different agricultural problems, from potato growth modelling using drone imagery, to fusarium detection from onion imagery, to wireworm detection pre-planting, and to cauliflower yield estimation using multi-spectral imagery. She managed the development and release of the current HarvestEye technology and HarvestEye Hand-Held.

 

Simon Jackson, Field Technical Manager, Syngenta

With a passion for vegetable production, ignited in the 1980’s through family ties to vegetable growing and packhouse operations, Simon pursued a degree in Agriculture. This foundation led to a career in field-scale vegetable production, beginning in Scotland in the mid-90’s. There, Simon provided agronomy advice on brassicas and pulses for a cooperative and later for a large packer. In 2010, Simon relocated to Lincolnshire to join Allium and Brassica Agronomy, offering comprehensive guidance on allium and brassica agronomy. Currently, Simon is with Syngenta, where responsibilities include technical support for vegetable products and managing the field-scale insecticide portfolio.

 

Paul Goddard, Business Development Manager (Specialities) – Agricultural Solutions, BASF plc

Paul graduated from Newcastle University in 1991 with BSc (Hons) in Agriculture, specialising in crop protection. Over the following 18 months, he dabbled with a number of jobs in the areas of accounts, wheat breeding and nutrition before settling into the start of nearly 22 years with Bayer (Crop Science). His roles at Bayer ranged from both efficacy and GLP trials, to product application specialist, biodiversity and working with the Food Value Chain. In 2014, Paul joined BASF as Stewardship and Value Chain Manager, also the technical lead for potatoes. In this time he saw the development and introduction of the wHen2gO smart tool and Bentazone Mapping tools for water stewardship. Paul is now the Business Development Manager for what he calls the ‘Sunday Roast’ veg crops, providing the technical lead for potatoes, carrots, bulb onions, brassicas and parsnips.

 

David Webster, CEO, LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming)

David joined LEAF as Chief Executive Officer in September 2023. Before this, he worked as Director of Sustainability and External Affairs for the UK Grocery Division of Associated British Foods (ABF). David joined ABF via W. Jordans (Cereals) Ltd. David worked closely with founders Bill and David Jordan to publicise the Jordans breakfast cereal brand and its longstanding commitment to wildlife friendly farming. Jordans was acquired by ABF in 2008 and David subsequently went on to lead sustainability for the Jordans & Ryvita Company, before being promoted to the position of Divisional Director for Grocery in 2017. He has a deep interest in farming and wildlife stemming from this work, and in particular the formation of the highly respected Jordans Farm Partnership, through which he worked alongside longstanding farm suppliers to the Jordans business, together with LEAF, the Wildlife Trusts and The Prince’s Countryside Fund.

 

Stephen Shields, Technical and Sustainability Manager, Huntapac Produce Ltd

Stephen is Huntapac’s Technical and Sustainability Director and has worked within the food industry for the last 30+years, notably within Huntapac Produce for the last 19 years. As Technical and Sustainability Director he knows firsthand the challenges and opportunities that arise from third party assurance schemes. As well as working within Huntapac he also holds the position of Vice Chair of the NFU’s Horticulture and Potato Board, is a member of the Red Tractor Fresh Produce Board and has recently become a member of the Horticulture Crop Protection Board. Huntapac Produce have recently become the 41^st LEAF Demonstration Farm.

 

Sam Trevey, Fresh Produce Technical Manager, Red Tractor

Sam Trevey joined Red Tractor in 2022. In his role as Fresh Produce Technical Manager, he is responsible for the management and development of the Fresh Produce Standards, working with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that they remain fit for purpose and meet the needs of the industry. Sam has had 20 years’ experience in the food industry and has a background in food safety auditing at farm level in the UK and abroad to various standards. Sam is an amateur grower and allotment-holder himself, as well as a keen artist, and has won prizes for both his giant pumpkins and his oil paintings!

 

Shay Myers, CEO, Owyhee Produce

Shay is a CEO, a third-generation farm kid, a pilot, and a popular social creator on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and he loves to share his knowledge and passion about agriculture, aviation, and his life with his more than three-quarters of a million followers on social media.

 

Tim Elcombe, Commercial and Operations Director, Bedfordshire Growers

Tim Elcombe is the Commercial and Operations Director at Bedfordshire Growers where he oversees the onion function of the business.  Graduating with a degree in Food Science from the University of Leeds, he started at Bedfordshire Growers in 2002. He has since held various technical and commercial roles within the business and has been Chairman of British Onions since February 2018.