Marie Ammann is working at EIT Food, the European Institute for Innovation and Technology, Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, working to make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted. EIT Food's mission is to transform the way food is produced, distributed and consumed, and increase its value to European society by solving the biggest innovation challenges through trusted partnerships between industry, education and research in collaboration with informed and engaged citizens. To achieve such a transformation, many new products, services, business models and processes need to be brought to market to systemically change the current complex and interwoven system. Innovation and technological solutions play a central role in this. In her role as Business Creation Manager, Marie supports Europeans best agrifood tech startups in launch, accelerate and scaling their innovation and business to solve global food system challenges. Therefore, she connects the dots between startups, corporates, and investors to support the best innovation to implement and integrate them successfully on the food and agriculture market.

Marie has an international degree in agrifood economics and food management with a specialization on innovation and entrepreneurship, thus she has worked in several startups as well as in German food sector. She has as well a degree in social entrepreneurship and is quite well embedded in the agrifood ecosystem in Germany.

Sophie oversees WRI’s behavioural science research and advocacy to promote more sustainable plant-rich diets and encourage reductions in household food waste.

Her background is in health and behaviour change, holding prior roles in both public and private sectors organizations in the health & wellness, finance, government, and academic sectors and in start-ups and consultancy.

Sophie earned her PhD in Behavioural Science from the University of Cambridge in 2016, is a chartered Health Psychologist and holds two Master’s degree in Public Health and Nutrition. She has published extensively on the topic of behavioural science, focussing on promoting better health through lifestyle changes including smoking cessation, physical activity promotion, alcohol reduction and adherence to healthy, sustainable diets.

Jordan Buck is a Senior Consultant at Ogilvy’s Behavioural Science Practice. With a background in evolutionary biology, Jordan’s work is grounded in the fundamental belief that an understanding of why humans really behave the way they do – at both the conscious and subconscious levels – is critical to any successful behaviour change campaign.

Throughout his career he has explored the actions and decisions people make, and how to encourage people to make better choices through the use of applied behavioural science. Jordan and his team work closely with WRAP to reduce food waste across the UK, on everything from changing food storage behaviours to reducing the unnecessary binning of food. Recently, Jordan has also been working with Costa Coffee to drive recycling, with Defra to reduce fly-tipping, and with the Money Advice Trust to empower people to get themselves out of debt.

Jordan has a first-class honours degree in Biology from the University of Bristol. Before joining Ogilvy Jordan was a Behavioural Scientist at Instinct Laboratory, a behavioural insights agency, and worked as a Strategic Consultant at The Behavioural Architects, a leading qualitative research agency in London.

With a Master’s degree in sustainability and economics, Thomas has developed strong professional experience while working in consultancy on sustainable innovation, as well as for NGOs, caterers and wholesalers in the field of food surplus collection and redistribution.

At International Food Waste Coalition, Thomas works to reduce food waste in collaboration with key operators of the hospitality and food service sector across Europe. He has been also working extensively with schools and corporate restaurants to raise awareness and trigger behavioral change.

As the Secretary General of the World Union of Wholesale Markets since 2020, Ms. Carrara works hand in hand with this all the major global network of fresh produce players to accelerate the transition of food systems towards sustainability and resilience.

Ms Carrara is an expert in food policies, food security and sustainable food systems. She has served as Chief of Staff to the CEO of Rungis international wholesale Market, led the preparatory work for the organisation of the International Forum of Gastronomy in France for the French Government, and accompanied the Mayor of Paris as her advisor in charge of economic development and food policy. Eugenia is graduated from the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS) and the Ecole National d'Administration (ENA).

Luciana Delgado, Ph.D. in Production Ecology and Resource Conservation of Wageningen University & Research, with 13 years’ experience in agribusiness, value chains, agrifood systems and agronomy.

Most of her career has been associated with global, regional, and local value chains, agroindustry, and food losses working at the International Food Policy Research Institute and its partners.

She has also worked with the private sector in the agro-industry sector. She has developed expertise in strengthening agriculture research and development programs, upgrading value chains, measuring and interventions to reduce food losses across the value chain, food waste, and assessing market opportunities for linking smallholders to dynamic markets.

Luciana has great experience in working with multidisciplinary teams and experience in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and led several research projects on food losses and issues related to soils and agribusiness.

Christophe is Too Good To Go's Global Director of Public Affairs, where, from Brussels, he leads a team that spans Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Madrid.

Together, they advocate Europe-wide for legislation that can help end global food waste, by supporting governments in drafting, improving and implementing meaningful policy measures against food waste.

Christophe is also one of 16 food waste experts involved in the European Consumer Food Waste Forum’s work.

Prior to Too Good To Go, Christophe spent 10 years with FTI Consulting, advising digital, food and financial companies on how to navigate the tricky world of EU policy making, first as consultant, then senior director, of strategic communications.

Since 2010 Angela Frigo has been working in the EU field dealing with food, agriculture, and social affairs.

Angela Frigo currently works as Secretary General at European Food Banks Federation (FEBA), a European non-profit organisation which works in collaboration with 24 Full Members and 6 Associate Members bringing together a network of more than 340 Food Banks across Europe that are committed to prevent food waste while reducing food insecurity. Angela Frigo’s duties include managing the organisation, promoting the core mission and the values of FEBA, providing a central point of contact for all stakeholders interested in FEBA, and supporting the development of opportunities for collaboration with international and European institutions and stakeholders.

Angela represents FEBA in several platforms and expert groups of the European Commission such the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste, the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism, the Advisory Group on Sustainability of Food Systems, and the European Community of Practice on Partnership.

She previously worked as EU and International Liaison Officer at Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus and had a work experience at the European Parliament.

Anne-Laure Gassin, Team Leader, food waste, at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, is supporting the development of EU policy on food waste prevention as part of the EU's Farm to Fork Strategy.

Anne-Laure Gassin joined the European Commission in 2013. She previously served, from 2003, as Director of Communications at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) where she developed and implemented EFSA’s risk communication strategy. Prior to that, she spent more than 15 years with the Kellogg Company, where her last appointment was as European Director with the responsibility for nutrition communications, and scientific and regulatory affairs.

She graduated from Harvard University in 1981, where she majored in biology, and was awarded a Masters in medical management and marketing in 1987 from the École Supérieure de Commerce in Paris.

Ferruh Gurtas is the Public Affairs Director at Tetra Pak for Asia, Middle East and Africa region. In this role he oversees Tetra Pak’s government affairs as well as the public policy and regulatory developments, emerging trends, and other political or public issues in the region in the areas of environment, sustainability, food and consumer health. He builds and manages relationships with key policy stakeholders as well as industry coalition, associations and NGOs.

Before joining Tetra Pak in March 2021, Ferruh worked at Intel Corporation between 1997 and 2018 in different countries in sales, marketing, business development, operations and corporate affairs roles. As the Corporate Affairs Director for Middle East, Turkey and Africa for 12 years, he was in charge of government affairs, education, entrepreneurship and women empowerment programs in the region. After leaving Intel at the end of 2018, he joined Tink - Technology and Humanity Colleges, as the CEO, and lead the formation of an innovative education institution that promotes a new education model addressing the skills gap of the fourth industrial revolution.

Ferruh Gurtas has a BSc degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey and MSc degree in Communications and Signal Processing from Imperial College, London. He also completed an executive management certification program at Insead.

Nicholas is a sustainability professional with expertise in food sustainability in the catering industry. He joined the global food service company Sodexo in 2018 where he is the Sustainability Impacts Director in the Global Corporate Responsibility team.

Originally from Seattle (USA), Nicholas started his career working with grassroots NGOs and social businesses in India and France before earning his MBA at HEC Paris with a focus on strategy and sustainability. When not working, he can most likely be found either playing guitar or hanging out with his 1-year-old son.

Erica van Herpen is Associate Professor in the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands (dr. HWI (Erica) van Herpen - WUR). Her research focuses on consumer decisions in retail and household settings. She examines how the presentation of products affects consumer behaviour, how consumers can be stimulated to buy more healthful and/or more sustainable food products, and how consumers use food products. Her recent work focuses especially on the collateral damage of household food management, that is, food waste. Ongoing studies examine factors that influence the amount of household food waste, validation of measurement methods for household food waste, and the impact of interventions to diminish this waste.

Erica enjoys interdisciplinary research collaborations, and her work has appeared in academic journals in the areas of consumer behaviour (e.g., Journal of Consumer Research), sustainability (e.g., Journal of Cleaner Production) as well as food science (e.g., Food Quality and Preference).

She has participated in various EU projects, among which the project REFRESH about food waste; is currently leading the Dutch project FETE, which examines transitions in the food system to reduce food waste; and is an expert member of the European Consumer Food Waste Forum.

Özlem Hiçcan is a technical expert in the Economic Cooperation Organization Regional Coordination Centre for Food Security (ECO-RCCFS). She is focused on agriculture, food security and nutrition issues in ECO Countries and has been working for a better food security and nutrition status for the ECO region for 6 years.

She is also an EU Expert in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Türkiye and has been working with various International Organizations for 11 years.

She has studied veterinary medicine as a profession and is also active in her profession with an ongoing research project in her PhD.

Dr Sophie Hieke is the Research Strategy Advisor at the European Food Information Council (EUFIC), a non-profit organisation established in 1995 which stands up for science-based information on food and health. Among other things, she has been the Principal Coordinator of the EU FP7 funded project CLYMBOL – Role of health claims and symbols in consumer behaviour.

Sophie is also a professor for Marketing & Communication at Munich Business School, where she teaches behavioural marketing and consumer behaviour.

She holds a PhD from the Munich School of Management at Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich. Her main area of research is consumer behaviour and psychology, specifically decision-making regarding food, health and lifestyle.

Sophie has published in numerous journals including the Journal of Consumer Affairs, Appetite, Food Policy, Food Quality & Preference and the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and held a position as Associate Editor for Public Health Nutrition from 2015 to 2019. She has won several prizes for her scientific publications, including the “Emerald Citation Award” in 2017 and “Best Paper of the Year” by the American Council of Consumer Interest in 2012. She also serves as a reviewer for several high-ranking scientific journals and is currently on the Expert Advisory Panel of Food Navigator.

Graduated from Sabancı University Industrial Engineering & MBA programs, Koray Koçer is an experienced marketeer with a demonstrated background in both retail and out-of-home fast moving consumer goods industry. Worked in various marketing positions in Unilever for 10 years, Koray is leading marketing and new businesses agenda for Fazla Gıda.

Pedro Araújo Manuel is a Portuguese tech entrepreneur and Engineer, better known as founder of BitCliq, an innovative software company applying emergent technologies such as Blockchain, Computer Vision and Deep Learning to improve Food Industries and supply chains.

He is an alumnus of Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa where he studied Electronics,
Telecommunications, Informatics and Computers Engineering, with a final specialization on Artificial Intelligence – Intelligent Physical Agents (IEEE/FIPA).

He is the mastermind behind Lota Digital, a Blockchain Seafood e-marketplace, connecting fishing boats at sea with commercial buyers over the internet, by implementing online auctions and deals, improving fish landing and speed, quality control while making available sea-to-table digital traceability. These innovations were validated in a pilot project between 2019-2021 and are now being adopted in Portugal.

In 2019, Pedro and BitCliq were awarded by Grupo La Caixa / Banco BPI as the best Iberian AgTech Startup – Prémio Empreendedor XXI, following several awards and market validations, such as FLAD/EY Buzz USA, Green Project Awards – Industry 4.0 and European Commission’s Elevator Pitch
– Ideias que Marcam.

In the seafood sector, Pedro and his team have more than 10 years of experience working with global partners and seafood leaders in Europe, Africa, Asia and Americas.

Mr. Juba Maruashvili works for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a Senior Policy Advisor since 2019.

His portfolio covers development of the agricultural policies and legislation. Under his assignment, Mr. Maruashvili works closely with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia, the Parliament of Georgia, and other Governmental institutions, providing technical assistance and expertise to the relevant departments and subordinated agencies.

During the past 12 years, Mr. Maruashvili worked for various international organizations in the field of international development and has successfully implemented programs contributing to agriculture, poverty reduction, and improving the living conditions of the rural population in Georgia. Through these programs, he has facilitated policy and legislative dialogue which has resulted in real policy changes in the country.

His working experience and partnership with the state and non-state institutions covers such policy areas as Agriculture and Rural Development, Food Loss and Waste Reduction, Climate-smart agriculture, Agricultural Extension Public-Private Dialogue, Grant Management, Confidence Building, IDPs, Monitoring and Evaluation, Business Development, and Consulting.

Juba Maruashvili is a Master of Politics and International Relations.

Bruno Menne is a policy advisor in charge of the feed dossier at Copa and Cogeca, an agricultural umbrella organisation representing over 65 national farm organisations and cooperatives in Europe. In addition to feed, his portfolio includes food information to consumers, food safety, quality schemes and the EU Promotion Policy.

Bruno holds a master degree in International Public Management from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, and a master in Public Administration with a specialization EU affairs from the Université Catholique De Louvain La Neuve.

Prior to joining the Copa-Cogeca Secretariat in Brussels in 2020, He worked as a Policy Officer for three years at the organization Safe Food Advocacy Europe, a Brussels based organization defending consumers interests in all EU legislation related to food.

Ms. Marit Nilses is an Economic Affairs Officer at the Economic Cooperation and Trade Division, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), responsible for its work on agricultural quality standards and related work on food loss in agricultural supply chains.

She has over 25 years’ experience from public and private sectors, of which nearly 20 years with the United Nations, focusing on trade, investment, and sustainable development issues, much of which in the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to the UN, she worked on policy analysis at a governmental agency under the Ministry of Industry of Sweden, and on marketing and communications at a multinational company in the construction sector. She has a Master of Science degree in Economics and Business Administration from Uppsala University, Sweden.

Zeynep graduated from the Middle East Technical University (METU) Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations in 2007. She completed her MA in European Studies at METU in 2019 and started her career in banking sector.

In 2011 Zeynep joined the General Directorate of EU Foreign Relations at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Türkiye, where she was first promoted to EU Expert and, in 2021, assigned to lead the European Union Harmonization Department.

During her service at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Türkiye, Zeynep was seconded to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, to draft the Türkiye section of the Annual Agricultural Policies Monitoring and Evaluation Report.

Since 2017, Zeynep has been also coordinating the national Save Your Food campaign against food loss and waste in Türkiye.

Sébastien is an expert in impact & sustainability, with a license in Public Policy from SciencesPo (France) & Ottawa University (Canada) and a masters degree in environmental engineering from Tsinghua University (China) & Ecoles de Mines (France).

Three years ago, he joined Glovo, a pioneering multi-category delivery app and one of the world’s leading delivery platforms, to create the Impact & Sustainability department. His team is now responsible for embedding sustainability into decision-making processes and across the entire value chain to maximize Glovo’s positive impact for society and the environment.

Sébastien was involved in multiple projects inside the company to make a positive impact in society, starting with the definition of the company’s climate strategy, that involves tackling food waste, transitioning to low-carbon logistics and accelerating the adoption of sustainable packaging by restaurants. In December 2021, the company’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42% in 2030 was validated by the Science Based Target initiative.

Since the Covid surge in 2020, Glovo has started leveraging the company’s technology and logistics for supporting social causes, through Glovo Access. This programme aims to respond to the essential needs of NGOs, social entities and public institutions by granting them free access to Glovo’s platform and logistics. More recently, Glovo launched its own Solidarity Delivery Centers in collaboration with the Spanish NGO Fundación Altius, in which food surplus from supermarkets and restaurants are centralized, packed in solidarity baskets, and distributed to beneficiaries of social services through last-mile logistics.

Prior to joining Glovo, Sébastien was a sustainability executive at the French company Suez, an active participant in the UN Climate Change conferences (2015-2018), and started his own start-up focused on digitalizing waste collection in sub-saharan cities.

Cortney Price holds an MSc in Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Liberal Arts from Yale University.

Since joining FAO in 2005, he delivered participatory approaches to behaviour change around animal and human health emergencies in a wide array of countries, supported innovation around climate change knowledge sharing and created the Antimicrobial Resistance Behaviour Change Community of Practice to crowd-source behavioural science solutions to AMR.

Cortney is currently leading FAO efforts to mainstream behavioural science applications across the Organization both for improved external delivery and more efficient and effective internal ways of working.

David has been with WRAP for over 13 years and heads the delivery of WRAP’s international work on sustainable production and consumption of food and products.

David has delivered projects across Europe, North America, Australia, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, covering topics such as baseline data measurement, voluntary agreements and consumer campaigns in plastics, food and textile industries. David has worked with the EU Commission, UN Environment, UN FAO, the Commonwealth and Foreign Office, national governments and major corporations around the world.

David is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts in collaborative, public-private agreements and has supported the development of agreements on food waste, plastics and textiles across Europe, North America, Latin America, S. Asia, Africa, and Australia. He wrote the Blueprint for Voluntary Agreements used by many countries today.

Kris De Smet graduated as Veterinarian Doctor in 1987.

From 1988 to 1992, he was researcher at the University of Ghent (Belgium) in the Faculty of Veterinary Science.

From 1992 until 2001 he was employed at the private sector.

Since 2001, he works as official at the European Commission, Health and Food Safety Directorate-General. He was involved in the management of EU legislation on BSE and zoonoses (mainly Salmonella). Since the beginning of 2009, he coordinates the EU legislation on food hygiene, official controls in products of animal origin and on the control of foodborne zoonoses. He also coordinates the EU position at the Codex alimentarius Committee Food Hygiene and is/was (co-)chair in the development of several Codex standards.

Currently Danone’s global director of Quality in design, Ahmed is an FMCG research & development, quality and industrial professional with almost 25 years of experience in multinational and private equity food industry corporations. His expertise covers a wide range of food categories; dairy, confectionary, food condiments, snacks where he worked on developing, manufacturing and distributing winning FMCG products across local, regional and international business units.

Through his career, Ahmed lead and actively contributed to launching major innovations capturing growth opportunities in a dynamic local and regional business contexts. He also worked on establishing efficient quality systems, effective product development as well as teams that drove consumer-preferred products with assured quality and compliance.

Major milestones:

• Danone group, France: Global Quality in Design director for dairy, plant-based, waters and first-diet categories responsible for disruptive innovations QFS compliance.

• Danone Egypt: Through a strong R&D and quality team, introducing recipes tweaked to local markets (yogurt, fresh dairy and desserts categories)

• Gozour/Dina Farms: Member of the executive board in the capacity of Quality, Research and development developing a vertical integration model from farm to table for a major local business; Dina Farms turning it into a nationwide household brand through introducing the first Egyptian fresh milk in PET and a multi-million retail chain brand for farm-fresh produce.

• Mars: Member of the regional team realizing MARS NAEM vision to move into local sourcing from the cornerstone of building a factory, installing the lines, launching locally produced international brands and introducing local recipes.

• Heinz: Establishing a quality assurance system in Heinz Egypt and working on product, process and packs formats that cater to the local market needs.

Sanne Stroosnijder (Msc.) works at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) where she is responsible for the research program ‘Food Loss and Waste Prevention’. With a team of multidisciplinary researchers, she works on effective prevention, reduction and valorisation strategies, interventions and technologies.

WUR has been a leading force in Europe on food loss & waste prevention and coordinated the successful EU projects FUSIONS (www.eu-fusions.org) and REFRESH (www.eu-refresh.org).

Sanne is part of the core team of the Dutch Food Waste Free United Foundation in which over 100 companies, organizations and knowledge partners work closely together with the Dutch government to deliver SDG 12.3 and reduce food loss and waste in the Netherlands by 50% in 2030 (www.samentegenvoedselverspilling.nl).

Richard is an environmental scientist with a strong track record of leading teams which tackle plastic pollution, reduce food waste and deliver more sustainable practices within businesses. He leads WRAP’s international work, working with partners in over 40 countries to deliver systemic change, particularly within the food system. WRAP is a not for profit organisation, based in the UK, which aims to tackle climate change and cut waste around the world.

Lieke has over 14 years of international working experience within Rabobank. She earned a degree in International Business Communication, and she has a master’s in international marketing. Recently she has graduated from Nyenrode Business University with a MBA Sustainability & Systemic Change.

In the past Lieke has been focusing on Sustainable Business Development for smallholder farmers and mainly worked on ‘sustainable production' and 'reducing food losses' for emerging markets. Lieke has therefore been involved in a new carbon-platform for smallholders and in setting up a Rabo Food Loss & Waste Hub and a cold chain initiative for emerging markets

At this moment she is working as a business developer manager in part of the global Food & Agri Networks team of Rabobank, where she focusses on a limited number of strategic topics, being banking propositions in the ‘True Value of Food’ and ‘reducing food loss and waste’. She is responsible for the new FLW strategy of Rabobank and is therefore closely working together with large networks to get these themes higher on the global agenda and to accelerate solutions that can contribute to the transition.

Margret Vidar has a law degree from her native Iceland and an LLM from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, in Lund, Sweden. She has worked on legal issues within FAO for a quarter century and has since 2009 dedicated herself to making rights a reality through national legislation, working with the Development Law Service of FAO. The Development Law Service is dedicated to supporting FAO members in the legislative realm related to food and agriculture, through direct technical assistance in legislative assessment and development, as well as through the collection and analysis of legislative information and analysis.

She works primarily on issues related to food security and nutrition, including the right to adequate food, creating enabling legal environments for healthy diets for all, while addressing food loss and waste, as well as on the responsible governance of tenure, with a focus on land tenure. She has supported numerous legal, intergovernmental processes within FAO, including the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure, the Voluntary Guidelines on Small-Scale Fisheries, the CFS Principles on Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems and the Code of Conduct on Food Loss and Waste.

Maarten Wegen has been serving as an Agricultural Counsellor at The Netherlands Embassy in Türkiye since 2020. His areas of focus include trade promotion, market access and policy dialogue.

Maarten has previously worked in the Fisheries Department of The Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture and as an Agricultural Counsellor in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina between 2013 - 2017. He studied International Relations in Groningen, The Netherlands.