SUSTAIN - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Administration Officer
- Finance
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.
Alan is a graphic and web designer, with passion for music, multisensory design and sustainability.
Alison Swan Parente studied social anthropology at LSE a very long time ago. She trained and worked as a child and adolescent psychotherapist in various settings in the USA and then the NHS for 35 years. She was Chair of the Trustees of the Women's Therapy Centre for many years and has sat on several Charity boards, both grant-giving and receiving.She founded the Welbeck Bakehouse in 2008 and the School of Artisan Food in 2009. She knows a bit about cooking from a lifetime of doing it, and a bit about education from her years of working with young people. She is particularly interested in food, health and obesity and the barriers to access to healthy food. She still has a lot to learn.
Alison is Chair of Sustain's Real Bread Campaign
Job Titles:
- Head of Activism for Feedback Global
× Andre Kpodonu Feedback Global As Head of Activism for Feedback Global, Andre Kpodonu leads on broadening and deepening participation within Feedback's work to regenerate nature by transforming the food system. His portfolio of project includes EcoTalent, an Our Bright Future funded project which works to diversify entrance into the sector. The INTERREG funded FLAVOUR project also works to broaden economic participation in the food sector, whist diverting nutritious food from going to waste. Andre has over a decade of experience working with and in communities grappling with marginalisation and structural disadvantage. Over the last eight years he has also worked to strengthen the governance of charities and NGOs to better serve and represent their beneficiaries. He led YMCA Europe's Youth Empowerment Network from 2012-2015, facilitating the election of young people onto their board of trustees. As a trustee of the Young Camden Foundation (a mezzanine organisation for the London Borough of Camden's children and young people's sector) he worked to ensure their board effectively balanced the priorities of the organisation, its members and the communities they in turn serve. Uniting Andre's experience and approach is a belief that equitable participation is a prerequisite of a just and ecologically sustainable planet. Declaration of interest: Sustain currently hosts a Feedback EcoTalent paid intern Close
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.
Rosie was Chair of the Mayor of London's Food Board 2008 - 2018. She was a co-founder of Spare rib magazine and Virago Press, and edited Esquire Magazine, and The Independent on Sunday, The Independent, and The Daily Express. She is the author of four books, including Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes, which chronicled a year in the life of her Somerset small holding. She is a Trustee of Feeding Britain, the Food Foundation and The Hay Festival.
Bella joined Sustain as Local Action Officer (on maternity cover), working on Good to Grow, Veg Cities, Sugar Smart, and Food for the Planet. She has a background in organic market gardening and research.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Chief Executive
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees of School Food Matters
- Trustee of the Charity School Food Matters
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.
Bridget Henderson is the research officer for the food, drink and agriculture sector represented by Unite, the union. Unite has more than 100,000 members in its food, drink and agriculture sector, and thousands more across all industrial sectors linked to the food chain, such as those in logistics and transport, printing and packaging, and the public sector. Formerly the editor of Landworker, the journal for rural workers, and now as the sector researcher, Bridget brings experience and insights of Unite members to contribute to Sustain's work in building a better, safer and fairer food system.
Chris Young has coordinated the Real Bread Campaign since March 2009. In addition to lobbying for an Honest Crust Act of better loaf composition, labelling and marketing laws; he created and runs Sourdough September; Real Bread Week; Real Bread For All; Together We Rise promoting therapeutic/social benefits and bread making; the No Loaf Lost surplus reduction initiative; as well as Lessons in Loaf and Bake Your Lawn for schools. He's the author of the Knead to Know…more microbakery handbook and Slow Dough: Real Bread recipe book; and edits True Loaf magazine.
From 2014-18, Chris 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 Championship and The World Bread Awards. In 2017, The School of Artisan Food honoured Chris with its first Fellowship.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Support Team for the Open Food Network
Cobi-Jane Akinrele is a member of the Support Team for the Open Food Network. She is a founder of the AKÉ Collective, a small community-focused start-up based in Nigeria committed to ensuring smallholder farmers in the global South are paid equitably for their produce. She also works in the support team at the Open Food Network (OFN), where she works closely with small- to medium-scale producers, ensuring they and their customers are able to use the OFN platform easily. Cobi is particularly interested in food justice for all, and believes neither race, gender, nor income should prevent access to healthy food or the ability to farm if one wishes to do so. She is a regular contributor to the OFN blog on these topics and hopes to learn more about what equitable food and farming truly means as she continues to navigate these spaces.
Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL is a restaurateur, author, educationist and popular media personality. Together with Pervin Todiwala, he runs three London restaurants: Café Spice Namaste, the longest standing recipient of a Michelin BIB Gourmand award, and home of the Parsee-inspired ‘Khaadraas Club' Dinners; Mr Todiwala's Kitchen and The Park Café. In 2015, he opened the River Restaurant in Goa and is planning other new restaurants. He also has a line of hand-made pickles and an outdoor and private catering business. A recipient of an Education & Training CATEY, the hospitality industry Oscars, he is also a Fellow of the Craft Guild of Chefs, founding member of the Guild of Entrepreneurs and Ambassador of The Clink Charity. He founded the national competition, Zest Quest Asia, to nurture Asian culinary skills among ‘homegrown' British chefs. He cooked the first luncheon for HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Job Titles:
- Director of WWF
- Trustee of the Food Foundation
David Edwards is Director of WWF-UK's new strategic focus on Food Systems transformation. He believes the coming years present the UK with a unique opportunity to accelerate transformation in global food systems through the development of exemplar policy, corporate action and food citizenship. His professional focus is to develop the research, advocacy and communications required to underpin this vision, and the partnerships required to influence decision makers and mobilise change at scale. He says that he believes Sustain can play a pivotal role through its support of innovative projects, through its campaigning and dissemination of critical insight. David has a wide experience in food ranging from an early career as a marketing research exec for UK major food and drinks brands, and 10 years working as Assistant Director of HRH Prince of Wales's International Sustainability Unit, specialising in food and agriculture. A particular interest in that role was the opportunity to leverage city-level leadership to accelerate action and wider policy change - something he still believes offers huge potential. David hopes to bring value to Sustain by helping to build new connections, particularly with corporate leadership here in the UK and to others internationally through his role on the Leadership Team of WWF's Global Food Practice. He says, "I am, at heart, a passionate foody and a passionate admirer of Sustain's aims, ethos and ambitions."
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder of Granville Community Kitchen
Deirdre ‘Dee' Woods is an award-winning cook, community food educator, urban agroecologist, organiser and researcher, with over 25 years' experience of working in diverse communities. In 2016 she was awarded BBC Food and Farming Awards, Cook of the Year. Dee is co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen and co-chair of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN). She is a director of the Landworkers Alliance, and member of the London Food Board that advises the Mayor of London on food policy, as well as the Food Ethics Council. Dee is co-editor of A People's Food Policy and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University. Dee is the also co-founder of the African and Caribbean Heritage Food Network, and a founding member of the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice.
Dee is co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen and co-chair of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN). Dee is a member of the Community Food Growers Network and the co-ordinating committee of the Landworkers Alliance, the GLA London Food Board, and the Food Ethics Council. Dee is co-editor of A People's Food Policy and sits on the steering group of People-Food-Power and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Agro-ecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University. Dee's work sits at the nexus of food and farming, particularly in intersectionality, diversity and inclusion, the right to food and nutrition, participatory policy making, community food systems, food system change, food commons, agroecology, food justice and food sovereignty.
Dr Kawther Hashem BSc MSc PhD RNutr (Public Health) is a Registered Nutritionist. She currently holds the position of research fellow at Queen Mary University of London and the Campaign Lead at the Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH), a charity organisation concerned with the effects of salt and sugar on health. Kawther studied for a BSc in Nutrition at King's College London. Since graduating, she has worked for the food industry, non-governmental organisations including the Children's Food Campaign at Sustain in 2011-2012 and more recently in academia. In 2014, Kawther completed a Masters in Food Policy at City University London and in early 2019, she completed her PhD on sugar reduction. Alongside her current roles, Kawther is also a visiting lecturer on nutrition and food policy at several UK Universities and is regularly invited to comment on nutrition topics in the media.
Job Titles:
- Campaign Coordinator
- Children 's Food Campaign Coordinator
Fran Bernhardt is Children's Food Campaign Coordinator at Sustain. Since 2018, she has advised the Mayor of London's team on writing and implementing the Healthier Food Advertising policy which restricts unhealthy food and drink advertising from the Transport for London network. This has led to a weekly reduction of 1000 calories and a 20% reduction in sugary products in London households' weekly purchases. She has also supported 6 local governments to take it through their own council boards to successfully pass the policy: Haringey, Merton, Southwark, Greenwich, Bristol and Barnsley. There are now more than 100 local governments consulting her for support to do the same across their own advertising sites.
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.
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.
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.
Hannah joined Sustain in November 2022 as Programme Manager for the Bridging the Gap programme, which aims to demonstrate ways to build better supply chains between climate and nature friendly food and people on a lower income.
Hannah has a background in international development and social impact business, working on issues from global health to institutional development and security sector reform, largely in sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining Sustain, Hannah was working as a freelance consultant on UK and international projects and campaigns, including the Better Business Act which aims to change UK law to ensure every company in the UK aligns their interests with those of wider society and the environment.
Job Titles:
- London Food Poverty Campaign Coordinator
Isabel joined Sustain in September 2022 to help coordinate the London Food Poverty Campaign which highlights and encourages sustainable responses to food poverty, particularly where they address the root causes of food poverty. She also supports the Good Food for All Londoners report, which benchmarks councils and aims to inspire leadership on food policy and practice.
Isabel is a Registered Dietitian with a background in clinical and public health nutrition working with marginalised populations in London. She has undertaken research and advocacy work focusing on food poverty, and management of frontline food aid provision. Following a master's degree in Nutrition for Global Health, Isabel was further inspired to work towards promoting more sustainable food systems and reducing food poverty and health inequity.
James has been working at Sustain since September 2020 and works on farming and local food system policy and campaigns. He also sits on the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Board. He has worked in farm advice at Natural England, farming policy at Defra, and on animal welfare issues at the NFU. James is passionate about agroecological farming, fairness in the food system, and is an aspiring farmer.
Josie Cohen joined Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) in June 2017 to head up the organisation's UK campaigning, policy and communications work. She studied politics at university and has spent the last fifteen years working as a campaigner for a range of organisations including the League Against Cruel Sports and Save the Children UK. For the past decade she has focused on social, environmental and human rights issues associated with large-scale agriculture, leading ActionAid UK's biofuels campaign and working on land rights for Global Witness.
× Jyoti Fernandes Landworkers Alliance The Landworkers Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of LWA members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone. Jyoti Fernandes is part of the LWA's Coordinating Group and an agroecological smallholder farmer. Jyoti says, "I have worked closely with Sustain on many campaigns to build a fairer food and farming system. I would like to bring diverse voices together- uplifted by Sustain, to work for food justice where everyone, regardless of income, background or where they live has access to healthy, affordable, sustainably produced food. We also need to bring more people into farming and food projects from diverse backgrounds, start more community farms, and community food projects. I believe in being proactive in creating opportunities for people from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds to create social and political change, and serve on the board of Sustain as a link point for getting people involved." Declaration of interest: Land Workers Alliance is working on a joint project with Sustain funded by Farming the Future Close
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive
- Trustee
- Trustee of Food Matters
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 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.
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
Job Titles:
- Public Health Nutritionist and the Campaign Director
Katharine Jenner is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and the Campaign Director of the award-winning salt reduction charity Action on Salt (CASH), its international arm World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) and Action on Sugar, which aims to reduce unnecessary sugars in the population's diet. She also runs the only charity dedicated to lowering the nation's blood pressure, Blood Pressure UK and is a Visiting Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at several UK universities. Katharine worked as a media strategist for several years and as such is very interested in developing innovative approaches to communicating public health. Formerly, Katharine was Chair of Sustain's Campaign for Better Hospital Food.
Katharine is Chair of Sustain's SUGAR SMART campaign; also Chair of Sustain's Children's Food Campaign working party
Job Titles:
- Bridging the Gap Programme Officer
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.
Mike Rayner is Chair of Sustain. He is a Professor of Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford where he is head of the Sustainable, Food, Diet and Non-Communicable Disease Prevention Research Group. The group, formerly the Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, which Mike founded in 1993, carries out research into the promotion of healthier and more sustainable diets. Mike is also Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group for the European Heart Network based in Brussels. He is an ordained priest in the Church of England.
Mike Rayner is Chair of Sustain
Mollie Gupta is Forest Commodities Manager for WWF-UK. WWF is currently working to bend the curve on biodiversity loss so that both people and nature can thrive. To achieve this, WWF is working to address the triple challenge of tackling climate change, restoring nature, and ensuring that a healthy, sustainable diet is accessible to all. Mollie Gupta joined the Food Commodities team at WWF-UK early in 2019, supporting work to remove deforestation, habitat conversion and exploitation from palm oil and soy supply chains to the UK. She is also working closely on WWF-UK's animal feed strategy, understanding ways in which the protein sources used in feed could be diversified to increase the use of innovative, sustainable alternatives that utilise waste streams and reduce environmental impact. Prior to joining WWF, Mollie participated in academic research identifying how the implementation of conservation projects could be decolonised in Australia, and research understanding how projects including payment for ecosystem services could be set up equitably in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Mollie hopes to bring to Sustain's Council of Trustees her specialism in ecology, food commodity production and commodity supply chains, and personal experiences as a young woman of colour with Indian heritage.
Nick Weir is Community Facilitator for the Open Food Network. He is a founder of Stroud Community Agriculture and Stroudco Food Hub. He helped to bring the Open Food Network (OFN) to the UK and now works as Community Facilitator with OFN UK and a Global Gardener supporting new countries to deploy OFN. As a Plunkett specialist advisor, a Co-ops UK consultant and a DTA Wales mentor, Nick has supported the set-up and development of many CSA and food hub enterprises. He says, "I am passionate about supporting communities to build short food supply chains and facilitating the development of food systems that address the needs of all beings. This includes building enterprises that address social inequalities and working towards removing the need for food banks."
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.
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.
Prue Leith is a cook and a writer of columns, cookbooks, novels and an autobiography. She is a strong supporter of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food and a persistent and successful lobbyist for higher hospital food standards. Prue received a CBE in 2010 for her services to school food and nutrition. She started and chaired the charity Focus on Food (now part of the Soil Association), which promotes healthy cooking on the curriculum, and she was the Chair of the School Food Trust, the Government Taskforce which helped improve school dinners and food education.
Prue is currently the patron of Let's Get Cooking, which organises healthy cooking clubs in schools and a trustee of the charity Baby Taste Journey that encourages pregnant mothers to eat well and to wean children onto a healthy diet. She started in catering with Leith's Good Food, followed by Leith's Restaurant, which won a Michelin Star, and Leith's School of Food and Wine. The group employed 500 people when she sold it in the nineties.
Prue is still Patron of the Prue Leith Chefs Academy In South Africa. She was named the Veuve Clicquot Business-Woman of the Year in 1990. For eleven years she was a judge the Great British Menu BBC2 series and will soon start her new role as a judge on the new Great British Bake Off on Channel 4.
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
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.
Job Titles:
- Food for Life Programme Manager
Raksha Mistry is the Soil Association Food for Life Programme Manager in Leicestershire. She is currently leading over 180 schools to develop a generation of conscious food citizens within a growing culture of good food. That extends across communities, caterers, food producers, and farmers. Raksha developed and established the national Grandparent Gardening Week, a campaign that enables generations to connect through food. Raksha is experienced working across community settings and generations to create meaningful and purposeful connection among groups. In 2019 the intergenerational practice and impact in Leicestershire was recognised and awarded by the NACC and reported across national media channels. Raksha has over 15 years' experience in partnership building, marketing and communications. She has a Masters in Climate Change and Sustainable Development. Whilst at Learning and Work Institute (formerly NIACE) Raksha led a regional team across England to engage with diverse and disadvantaged communities to find life enrichment opportunities through adult learning.
Job Titles:
- Associate Member of the Faculty of Public Health
- Head of Food Policy at the Soil Association, Lea
Rob Percival is Head of Food Policy at the Soil Association, leading the organisation's advocacy and campaigns for healthy and sustainable diets. He works closely with the Food for Life programme on procurement and school food policy, and is currently leading campaigns on intensive livestock, ultra-processed foods, and children's food in popular attractions and high street restaurants.
Rob has worked with Sustain in a variety of contexts over the last (almost) decade to influence government policy on public procurement, children's food, farming and land-use, and more.
Rob is an associate member of the Faculty of Public Health, sitting on their Food Special Interest Group. He is also a trustee of First Steps Nutrition Trust. His book, The Meat Paradox, which explores the tensions of the meat debate, was published in March 2022.
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.
Sarah is Programmes Director for Sustain and a member of the Senior Leadership Team, having joined in in 2009 to run Capital Growth campaign, which supported 2,012 new community food growing gardens in London.
Sarah has developed several new programmes at Sustain including Big Dig, Growing Health and more recently Bridging the Gap. Her work focuses on our Local Action theme and includes overseeing Sustainable Food Places, London Food Link and Sustain's food growing programmes. Sarah also represents Sustain on the London Food Board, and co leads our work on skills including the Food Learning Forum.
Prior to Sustain her roles included running community regeneration projects, at Groundwork East London and Strategic Manager of the Newham Food Access Partnership. Sarah has a Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development, achieved through the Forum for the Future programme.
Job Titles:
- Principal Researcher and Writer
× Shefalee Loth Which? Shefalee Loth is Principal Researcher and Writer at Which?, the UK's largest independent, not-for-profit consumer organisation which aims to tackle consumer harm and make consumers as powerful as the organisations they deal with in their daily lives. Shefalee produces consumer focused food and nutrition content for Which? covering nutrition and health, food safety and authenticity, and sustainability. She is a Public Health Nutritionist who has previously worked in research and for the NHS. In her role at Which? Shefalee has campaigned for better nutrition labelling, consumer-focused food law enforcement, and most recently saving our food standards in future trade deals. Shefalee was an advisory group member for Food Integrity, an EU funded project to combat food fraud and was Chair and trustee of the Caroline Walker Trust. Declaration of interest: None Close
Job Titles:
- Campaigns and Policy Coordinator
- Sustainable Food Places Policy and Campaigns Coordinator
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.
Job Titles:
- Communications & Learning Coordinator
Stephanie is leading on Sustain's communications strategy as the organisation enters an exciting new phase of growth.
Stephanie Slater is Vice-Chair of Sustain. Stephanie is Founder/Chief Executive of the charity School Food Matters, set up in 2007 to campaign for fresh, sustainable school food and to promote food education. In 2012 she joined the School Food Plan's Expert Panel, tasked by the Department for Education to create an action plan to support head teachers to improve food in their schools. She is now co-Chair of the School Food Plan Alliance.
Stephanie Slater is Vice-Chair of Sustain; also Chair of Sustain's London Food Link network and Capital Growth; and was formerly Vice-Chair of the independent Children's Health Fund Board (now disbanded).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Food Policy at City, University of London 's Centre for Food Policy
Tim Lang is Professor of Food Policy at City, University of London's Centre for Food Policy. He was a hill farmer in Lancashire UK in the 1970s which confirmed his interest in food as a link for health, environment, culture and political economy. He was food advisor to the EU Environment Commissioner (1988), food commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission (2006-11), and a member of UK Council of Food Policy Advisors (2008-10) and the London Food Board advising the Mayor of London (since 2009). His latest book Sustainable Diets (with Pamela Mason) was published in March 2017.
Vera is the Sustainable Food Places Local Action Coordinator, linking up local activity across the network to help drive national-level policy change. She oversees the programme's Good Food Movement work, helping food partnerships connect with grassroots communities and support resident-led action. She also leads on the Veg Cities campaign and the annual Sustainable Food Places Day of Celebration and Action.
She has previously coordinated the Sugar Smart campaign. Prior to joining Sustain, she ran local food waste action initiatives, including Brighton & Hove's Love Food Hate Waste campaign and Surplus Food Network, as well as Feedback's Sussex Gleaning Network.
Job Titles:
- Head of Sustainable Farming
- Head of Sustainable Farming, Comments.
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.