Programme & Speakers
Alison Blackwell, CEO, APS Biocontrol Ltd
CEO of APS Biocontrol Ltd., based in Dundee. Within her role, Alison has overall responsibility for directing the company’s R&D into bacteriophages for crop protection, in addition to commercialising the company’s product pipeline. She has contributed to the new knowledge required for regulatory frameworks to understand and keep pace with this new innovation and has direct experience of preparing information to support the registration of bacteriophages as active substances in plant protection products in the EU and UK.
Alistair Carmichael, MP and Chair of the EFRA Committee
Alistair Carmichael is the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland and has served continuously as an MP since 2001. He has been the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee since 2024. He has previously held senior government roles including Secretary of State for Scotland and Chief Whip/Comptroller of HM Household. He Chairs APPGs for Fisheries, the Baha’i faith, Jordan, Syria, and Marine Energy.
Anne van Diepeningen, Senior Researcher, Wageningen University and Research
Anne is working as researcher at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. As phytopathologist she is mainly working with one of the most important fungi world-wide: Fusarium. Since 2020 she is participating in the Dutch Uireka project focusing on onions. In this project they have learned more about the main Dutch species causing fusarium boll rot in onion, how it differs from other pathogens and about its epidemiology.
Andrew McHardy, Agricultural manager, Tesco
Andrew is an Agriculture Manager at Tesco, where he leads work on sustainable agriculture across the produce supply chain. In this role, he works closely with UK and international growers to improve environmental performance and resilience, with a focus on climate, pesticide reduction, and regenerative farming practices. Prior to Tesco, Andrew gained experience across the fresh produce sector, including roles with G’s Fresh and Vertical Future, giving him a strong understanding of both conventional and emerging farming systems. This has shaped his interest in connecting farm-level practice with wider sustainability ambitions. Andrew is particularly focused on collaborative approaches that bring together farmers, retailers, and industry partners to deliver practical, scalable change, supporting growers to respond to climate challenges while maintaining high-quality, affordable food production.
Charles Banks, Partner & Managing Director, The Food People Ltd
Charles is partner and Managing Director at thefoodpeople, a fourth generation foodie, an expert in food futures and a ‘champion of change’. Cooking at his mother’s side in the kitchen is where Charles’ obsession for food began! He and his business, thefoodpeople, are known for shifting the future of food and drink by harnessing the power of trends. Charles has spent the past 35+ years in the food industry working across all sectors including food service, fine dining, hotels, food brands and food retailing. Thefoodpeople, established for over 20 years, are a global trends business, specialising in future foresight in the food and beverage sector. A united group of trend spotters and innovators, they’re a team of psychologists, chefs, marketeers, product developers, academics, flavourists, historians and anthropologists. But more than that, TFP are ‘champions of change’ that bring their inherent experience and human intelligence to foresight, as well as an obsession for food and drink, natural curiosity, intuition and tenacity. This is underpinned by their vision ‘to shift the future of food and drink’. What drives us is our desire to shape a better future across society by harnessing the power of trends. Thefoodpeople are owned 100% by its employees and operate globally supporting brands, retailers, manufacturers, hospitality operators and even governments and not-for-profit organisations, to identify the trends of today and yesterday, build the foresight for tomorrow and the future so that they can act now, to make transformational impact to their business and the wider industry. In addition, Charles co-founded thefoodpeople Foundation in 2020, partnering with affiliated charities and their community, to shift food, health and education in schools, to impact future generations. Charles adds “The reason that “thefoodpeople” exists is because we’ve been in your shoes. We know what it’s like; we know it’s not easy identifying and activating trends. It’s a fact that consumers are moving faster than industry, so decoding your businesses place on the future horizon and designing brilliant but nimble business models, strategies, and developing deep, value-based connections with consumers are essential traits of innovators both today and tomorrow. So do the most powerful thing a business can do – champion & harness change, don’t let it harness you”.
Ellie Vinnicombe, Head of Crop Protection, Agricultural Industries Confederation
Ellie joined the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) in May 2026 as Head of the Crop Protection and Agronomy Sector. In this role, she leads the management and coordination of the sector, representing and supporting members and engaging with policy makers to ensure their views are heard and understood. Prior to joining AIC, Ellie has built valuable experience across the crop protection industry. Her background includes roles as a Policy and Regulatory Manager at CropLife UK, a Senior Regulatory Affairs Consultant, and hands-on field trials work involving crop protection products. Ellie holds a Master’s degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Sheffield, where she specialised in plant pathology.
Gertjan van Westen, Researcher, Bejo
Gertjan van Westen is a seed technology research expert with over 11 years of experience in research at vegetable seed company Bejo. With a background in biology, Gertjan is particularly interested in the role of biological solutions and integrated crop management in supporting a healthy crop establishment and sustainable vegetable production. His work focuses on developing seed-applied technologies and biological solutions that help growers improve crop performance under challenging conditions.
Johannes Ritz, Consultant for Vegetable and Potato Production, Bioland Beratungsdienst GmbH
Johannes has been in this role since May 2024. He likes to get deep into the topics and find all the available information (theories), build a network with people related to the topic and build up as much experience (in the field) as possible. Johannes consults with most organic garlic growers in southern Germany. In August 2024, with the leafhopper Pentastiridius leporinus, in one week three of his clients had complete losses. Since then he has been hooked with this topic and tries to deal with it as holisiticly as possible, meaning looking into all affected cultures and being in close contact to all stakeholders involved, both national and international.
John Clarkson, Professor, University of Warwick
John is a plant pathologist with more than 30 years of experience in plant disease research, spanning both fundamental and applied studies supported by government agencies, research councils, and industry partners. His expertise encompasses the biology, epidemiology, ecology, evolution, and diversity of fungal plant pathogens, with a strong emphasis on translating research into practical solutions, including host resistance, molecular diagnostics, and integrated disease management strategies. John’s research group focuses on soilborne fungal pathogens, particularly the Fusarium oxysporum species complex. Current projects investigate pathogenic formae speciales responsible for wilt and root rot diseases affecting a wide range of crops, with onion, lettuce, and Narcissus among the most significant in the UK. John has worked closely with onion growers for many years to mitigate the impact of Fusarium basal rot, leading to the development of a commercial soil test tool that enables growers to assess disease risk and support management decisions.
Mark Betson, Water Resources Specialist, NFU
Mark has been part of the water unit in the Environment Team since joining the NFU at the start of 2024. He leads on issues relating to water resources including drought, abstraction licencing and business water use, liaising with the EA and water companies in support of agriculture. Mark sits on the Leadership Board for the National Framework for Water Resources and jointly chairs the agriculture subgroup of the National Drought Group. He has a background as a National Public Policy Adviser working on environment and land use for the Church of England and as an environmental consultant with ADAS.
Tim Lang, Professor Emeritus of Food Policy, City St George’s, University of London
Tim Lang is Professor Emeritus of Food Policy at City St George’s, University of London. After a doctorate and then hill farming in Lancashire in the 1970s, he focussed on food policy across health, environment, politics and culture. He founded and directed the Centre for Food Policy 1994-2018 to research and educated about food system dynamics. After Brexit, he focussed on the UK, writing ‘Feeding Britain’ (Pelican 2020). Currently, he researches and advises on the state of civil food resilience. asking whether society is prepared for food shocks. His ‘Just in Case’ report (National Preparedness Commission, February 2025) provides a widely read analysis.
Veryan Bliss, Chair of Fresh Produce Board, Red Tractor
Veryan Bliss is a food and farming advisor and non-executive director with over 30 years’ experience working across fresh produce supply chains. She specialises in helping businesses bridge the gap between innovation, commercial reality, and technical delivery—focusing on how new tools and ideas translate into something that actually works on farm and through the supply chain. She is the founder of Food Intelligence Ltd, where she works directly with growers, packers, and supply chain businesses to improve performance, strengthen systems, and adopt new approaches to data, traceability, and assurance. Alongside this, she works with agritech businesses to shape and challenge their propositions—advising on real-world use cases, commercial fit, and operational delivery, drawing on her experience across the full supply chain. Veryan began her career as a technical assistant in field vegetables before progressing to Technical and Commercial Director at Suncrop Produce, where she developed particular expertise in protected glasshouse horticulture. This gives her a rare combination of deep technical grounding and strong commercial instinct. That experience now underpins a broader advisory and governance portfolio, where she works across the full supply chain—from primary production through to retail—rather than from a single functional perspective. Alongside her consultancy work, she holds a number of senior governance roles. She is Chair of the Fresh Produce Sector Board at Red Tractor and a Non-Executive Director of Assured Food Standards. She is also a Trustee of the East of England Agricultural Society and a Non-Executive Director at The Andersons Centre. She previously served for over a decade as a Non-Executive Director at the Fresh Produce Consortium, contributing to key industry issues including regulation, food safety, and supply chain resilience. Veryan is known for her pragmatic, straight-talking approach and her ability to challenge where innovation doesn’t align with commercial or operational reality. She is particularly interested in why some technologies scale quickly while others stall—and how agritech, from field-level data through to supply chain traceability, can be better integrated to deliver real gains in productivity, resilience, and trust.