Pip Murray is the CEO and founder of Pip & Nut.

In 2013, she was training for a marathon when she discovered her go-to peanut butter contained palm oil—an ingredient linked to deforestation and habitat loss. Unable to find a suitable alternative, and aged just 24, she decided to make her own instead. What began at her kitchen table quickly evolved into Pip & Nut, now the UK’s second-largest nut butter brand and a proud B Corp.

Murray also serves as a B Corp board member, helping steer the movement’s standards and championing a more responsible way of doing business. Today, Pip & Nut’s palm oil-free jars range from Crunchy Peanut to Coconut Almond Butter, all made with the belief that good food should be as natural and ethical as possible.

Never one to settle, she expanded the brand with Nut Butter Cups, which now source ethical cocoa through Tony’s Open Chain, and in 2024 introduced peanut butter Stuffed Oat Bars - shaking up the snack aisle with a ‘better-for-you’ offering made from store-cupboard ingredients.

Recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30 (2018) and named as Entrepreneur of the Year (2024) by Food Manufacture’s sister title The Grocer, Murray also helped found JEDI Matters, a collective of like-minded brands guiding SMEs to embed justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in their businesses.

Through it all, she remains committed to empowering other women in business, calling for greater investment and support so more can launch- and scale -brands with purpose.

Ramona Hazan is the founder of Ramona’s.

Hazan has transformed her humble kitchen start-up into the UK’s number one Houmous brand over the past 20 years.

Drawing inspiration from her Mediterranean heritage and treasured family recipes, she has built a brand known for its authenticity and bold flavours.

The brand has grown immensely, seeing 80% growth in sales year-on-year taking sales from £10.2 million to £18.3 million (Nielsen data 52w/e 22.2.25).

More than 5 million tubs of Heavenly Houmous sold last year – the equivalent of a tub bought every 6 seconds in the UK.

Ramona’s now boasts a 10% share of the total houmous category value (Nielsen data 4w/e 22.2.25).

Passionate about empowering women in the food industry, Hazan frequently speaks on panels, mentors aspiring female entrepreneurs, and advocates for innovation in the sector.

Nicole Nichol, director of agriculture, variety development, and seed supply at McCain Foods, is the pioneering scientist behind testing these outcomes. In her role, she works closely with breeders to trial new potato varieties, ensuring they meet consumer needs and preferences.

Nichol joined McCain Foods as manager of variety development and seed supply in 2021 before progressing to director, with the team flourishing under her leadership, growing from three to eight members.

Under her direction, McCain has broadened its network of breeders and continued to trial new potato varieties, assessing their environmental impact, quality and yield.

Her journey into the world of potatoes began with a deep passion for genetics, which led her to a botany course and eventually to Michigan State University, where she delved into the world of plant breeding, genetics, and biotechnology.

In her current role, Nichol’s vision for McCain Food’s seed and variety program is for it to be recognised as the gold standard for seed quality and a leader in developing new varieties that meet customer needs while promoting sustainable growing practices.

She also aims for McCain to be the partner of choice for seed growers, ensuring a high-quality supply for decades to come. Ensuring a resilient crop is especially important in the context of a changing climate and aligned with McCain’s commitment of implementing regenerative practices across 100% of acreage farming McCain potatoes by 2030.

With over 5,000 potato varieties worldwide, the type of variety chosen for planting McCain’s potatoes is critical in determining yield, input requirements, and, essential at McCain – the producer of one in four fries consumed worldwide - the final colour of a French fry!

Fiona Kendrick is often called a veteran of the food and drink industry.

She worked for Nestle for 40 years in both global and UK roles, and was the first female chair & CEO of Nestle UK&I.

She was also the president of the Food & Drink Federation (FDF) and founder member of the Food & Drink Sector Council.

Beyond her love for food and drink she has a passion for skills and education. Kendrick was a commissioner for skills and employment, chair of a new university for engineers and is currently on the board for Apprenticeships and Shadow Skills England.

She remains closely involved with the food and beverage industry and is passionate about gender balance and supporting women into senior leadership roles.

Managing director of Porky Whites, Fran Wyatt is a third-generation butcher and a driving force in the UK meat industry.

As a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers, she has successfully transformed the family business by blending tradition with innovation. Since taking the helm in 2019, she has led the company through significant challenges, including financial recovery, supply chain disruptions, and rising production costs. Under her leadership, Porky Whites has grown from £2 million to £5 million in revenue, with a target of £8 million by 2025.

Known as the ‘Sausage Supreme Guru’, Wyatt is committed to crafting high-quality products, pioneering automation in manufacturing, and expanding the brand across retail, wholesale, and export markets.

She actively mentors future industry leaders, advocates against food fraud, and supports initiatives that encourage women in the meat sector.

Nagma Ebanks-Beni’s career has been defined by bold moves and entrepreneurial ambition. After studying fashion design and marketing, she launched a successful restaurant and bar in London before returning to the North East to help transform her family’s business, Prima Cheese.

Under her leadership, Prima evolved from a regional supplier into a globally respected and award-winning dairy powerhouse, exporting to over 50 countries worldwide. She played a pivotal role in establishing Prima’s dedicated processing plant in 2007 and later built the export team, driving international success that continues to thrive to this day.

Her achievements were recognised in 2020 with an MBE for Services to International Trade, and in 2024, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration by the University of Sunderland.

Now leading Prima’s commercial expansion from London while maintaining strong ties to the North East, Ebanks-Beni continues to push boundaries in the global food industry.

Ros Heathcote founded Borough Broth in 2015 to bring truly slow-cooked, traceable bone broths to market. What started at her kitchen table has grown into a multi-million-pound business with 170% year-on-year growth.

In 2023, she acquired and relaunched SpiceBox Organic with founder Grace Regan, expanding into nutrient-rich, plant-based convenience foods. With a deep passion for ultra-slow food, she has built both brands around organic, ethically sourced ingredients and time-honoured cooking methods.

Under her leadership, Borough Broth became a certified B Corp, reinforcing its commitment to sustainability.

Driven by integrity and transparency, Heathcote continues to push the industry forward, proving that great food can be made the right way.

Fran Ball is production vice president at Arla Foods UK. Ball is not only the most senior woman in the supply chain, but she sits on the company’s board too.

She is responsible for leading a team of over 2,000 colleagues across Arla’s UK manufacturing sites, producing a range of milk, cream, cheese, butter and powder products.

Ball was appointed into this role in August 2022 following a successful talent management programme which allowed her to develop from her first role in Arla as UK technical director into a global role looking after quality, health and safety, and environment across Arla’s milk and yogurt category. She then moved functions into a site director role for one of Arla Foods UK’s largest manufacturing sites three years ago.

Ball recognises that manufacturing is still a predominately male industry but has benefited throughout her career from inspiring senior female leaders. She is passionate about developing the next generation of successful female leaders.

Nimisha Raja, the founder of Nim’s...naturally, has made significant contributions to the food and beverages industry by pioneering the production of 100% natural air-dried fruit and vegetable crisps.

Her innovative approach has transformed the snacking landscape, offering healthier alternatives that retain the natural flavour and nutritional benefits of the ingredients.

Under her leadership, Nim’s has expanded its product range to include drink garnishes, botanicals, ingredients and edible teas, all made from a single ingredient without any additives.

Raja’s commitment to sustainability is evident in her achievement of zero food waste, ensuring that all fresh produce is utilised efficiently Her efforts have not only garnered industry accolades, such as the Queen’s Award for Innovation, but have also set a new standard for clean, healthy, and sustainable snacking

Additionally, she sits on the board of the East Malling Trust, mentors small F&B startups as part of the Growing Kent and Medway Mentorship Program, and lends her experience to the Food Accelerator Program, also with Growing Kent and Medway.

In 2016 and Raja’s business took home the Food Manufacture Excellence Awards’ trophy for SME Innovation and was awarded Ambient Food Manufacturing Company of the Year twice, in 2020 and 2023.

Vanessa Smith is a dynamic leader with an impressive and diverse 30-years in the food and beverage industry, working across some of the UK’s most loved and iconic brands.

As director of supply chain operations Wakefield at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), she has led teams to improve efficiency, enhance environmental responsibility, and create a more diverse workplace where everyone feels welcome. While the progress made under her leadership is already impactful, she remains steadfast in her drive to push for further change.

Throughout her career, Smith has been an advocate for women in manufacturing — especially as she made history early in her career by being the first female to join her manufacturing site. She is proud to be part of a sector that is making real progress in increasing the representation of women, creating opportunities to attract and retain top talent. Seeing this progress first-hand has only strengthened her commitment to driving meaningful, long-lasting change - both within the business and across the wider industry.

Dr Carrie Ruxton is a dietitian and founder of Nutrition Communications.

As an evidence-based nutrition communicator, her mission is to enable food businesses to be effective, compelling and ethical in their communications about products and ingredients.

Over the past 20 years, she has worked with a broad range of international companies and trade bodies to commission and communicate scientific research, explore consumer attitudes about nutrition, create content for different stakeholders, engage with the media and help clients make better decisions about reformulation and health claims.

Ruxton has also served on public sector boards, including Food Standards Scotland and, currently, Quality Meat Scotland.

Her ethos is to start with a balanced assessment of the science and craft messages from this, rather than finding science to suit the preferred message. She believes this ultimately improves consumer confidence.

Helen Sisson is technical director at 2 Sisters Food Group.

Sisson has been in the industry more than 30 years where she has held diverse technical roles encompassing food safety and quality, sustainability, health and safety, and agriculture.

Sisson is known for building high performing teams, developing and empowering them, whilst providing the strategic leadership, direction and importantly the support, resulting in the delivery of functional excellence recognised by a range of stakeholders, from customers to insurers.

She also provides considerable support to the development of the industry , through representation on a number of advisory boards and was the first women to chair the Chilled Food Association (CFA).

Sisson was involved in the establishment of the pioneering Food Industry Intelligence Network (FIIN), of which she is a director and co-chair.

FIIN, which today has more than 65 members, was set up in response to the recommendations set out by the ‘Elliott Review’, and has created a safe haven for the sector to collect, collate, analyse and disseminate information and intelligence to protect food integrity.

Fiin now not only shares intelligence with its members but also with the regulators and will shortly provide a means to support smaller businesses on food integrity through an SME hub.

Sisson also contributes to government activities, having been part of the independent review into labour shortages in the food supply chain and sits on the Defra lead market monitoring group.

She a trustee for FareShare Midlands, having previously served as a trustee for FareShare UK and is also a non-executive director of Campden BRI.

Karen Betts OBE leads the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), advocating for the UK’s largest manufacturing industry, food and drink, promoting the role the sector plays in providing opportunities, jobs and investment to local communities across the UK.

As chief executive of the FDF, Betts is a driving force in ensuring the views of the UK’s food and drink manufacturers are represented in governments around the UK, fostering strong relationships between our industry and ministers, parliamentarians and officials.

Under her stewardship, FDF has played a pivotal role securing UK food and drink’s position on the global stage by helping British businesses unlock new export opportunities. This includes being the voice of the F&B industry to government, ensuring the sector is front and centre of Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

A key achievement in 2024 was leading FDF’s campaign to prevent extending Northern Ireland’s ‘Not for EU’ labelling regulations across the whole of Great Britain. These proposed regulations would have placed significant burden on food and drink manufacturers producing and selling in Britain, adding complexity and costs to their operations and potentially limiting choice for the British consumer.

Through her leadership, Betts successfully spearheaded efforts to advocate for more pragmatic regulations, ensuring businesses could continue to operate efficiently in the challenging post-Brexit trade environment. And in 2024, she also launched Ambition2030, FDF’s flagship industry sustainability strategy. The significance of this strategy was highlighted by circular economy minister Mary Creagh.

Amy Wilkinson is reshaping the food and drink industry by tackling the tough conversations others avoid.

Having worked across multiple functions in food manufacturing over the past two decades, she now helps major manufacturers and retailers strengthen leadership, communication, and resilience through coaching and training at Fearless Foodies.

She is also the host of the popular Oh For Food’s Sake podcast, where she challenges industry norms and sparks candid discussions. Moreover, through her newly launched community, Fearless Women Connect, she is creating space for women in food to grow their careers with confidence— without sugar-coating the challenges.

Laura Ryan is a globally recognised expert in building networks and driving transformational change across the agri-food sector. Until 2019, she was director of the Beef & Lamb Board at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). In 2023, she was named in The Grocer’s ‘Power List’ for her influence in the industry.

Through her consultancy, Lavenpark, Ryan empowers businesses to achieve greater success by enhancing industry insight, connectivity, business development, marketing and communications. She also delivers executive coaching, equipping leaders with the strategies to navigate change and maximise their impact.

Ryan is the founder and global chair of Meat Business Women, the global professional network for women in the meat industry, which is recognised by the United Nations as a solution to the global Sustainable Development Goals.

As the CEO and co- founder of one of the UK’s fastest-growing food companies, FuelHub, Michelle Laithwaite has built a business that fuels the nation’s leading athletes and sports teams, delivering high-performance nutrition at the highest level.

Since launching, she has grown a team of 30+ and driven 63% CAGR, which is a testament to the brand’s innovation, quality and commitment to excellence.

Her leadership has been recognised through multiple award nominations, alongside her factory which picked up Site Team of the Year prize at the Food Manufacture Excellence Awards in February 2024.

After a year of rapid growth in 2024, driven by a consistent 9% month-on-month rise in customer numbers, Fuel Hub is projected to hit the £4m turnover mark in April 2025.

Looking ahead, the firm is now preparing for further expansion in 2025, with plans to triple its weekly production capacity to 36,000 meals.

Operating out of its 15,000 square foot facility in Warrington, Fuel Hub is aiming to pass £7m in turnover by 2026.

Adele Ward is the marketing director at Ecotone UK. Her role is to guide change-making and market-leading natural brands, Clipper Teas and Kallo, to success.

An accomplished and commercially-savvy marketeer, her expertise spans strategy development, brand building, and team leadership across the full marketing mix from consumer and category insight to full 360-activation.

Notably, Adele has been at the forefront of Clipper’s UK engaging marketing strategy and subsequent strong performance. Clipper is currently outperforming the wider tea category, with year-on-year growth of +14.5% value sales last year (52 w/e Kantar World Panel 29 Dec 24 vs YA) – following significant investment in the ethical mainstay’s ‘There’s Tea, Then There’s GOOD Tea’ campaign.

Across Kallo, Ward has steered the brand through its foray into cereals, driven by an out of home campaign that’s attracting younger consumers to granola.

Outside of work, Ward is fan of CrossFit and is currently training for a half marathon.

Elin Roberts is the co-founder and co-CEO of Better Nature - a tempeh brand that has as much protein as chicken while also being supercharged with fibre and gut-friendly prebiotics.

Roberts, who has always been passionate about healthy, plant-based food, co-founded the business in 2019 when she was just 23 years old.

Just five years later and Better Nature was the UK’s second-fastest-growing meat-free brand in 2024, stocked in Tesco, Asda, Ocado, Lidl, Planet Organic and Whole Foods Market in the UK, as well as REWE, Globus and Tegut in Germany.

The brand, which achieved B Corp status in 2023, has also won a number of awards, including a Great Taste prize.

At Better Nature, Robert has been instrumental to the brand’s sustained growth and success, leading on business strategy, team culture and marketing.

Having studied experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, she has a keen interest in exploring how people think and using these insights to drive positive behavioural change. She is a big advocate for mental health and empowering people to thrive, something she takes very seriously whilst leading her team.

Beyond Better Nature, Roberts is training to become an executive coach and has done a number of counselling courses. She also does an improv acting course and is learning Spanish.

Dawn Burton is the driving force behind Caribburton Caterers and the Caribbean Food Collective. These enterprises showcase her unparalleled expertise in fostering growth, connecting, promoting and supporting Caribbean food and beverage businesses in the UK. Her leadership has created avenues for businesses to thrive while championing the rich heritage of Caribbean flavours and cultures.

As a speaker, Burton’s enthusiasm shines on the stage, where she shares her insights on food, catering, and the journey of building her catering business.

Her vision extends to the prestigious UK Caribbean Food Awards, which she set up with her business partner Marsha Barnett after spotting a demand for Caribbean takeaways. Now in its third rear, it recognises and celebrates the accomplishments of UK Caribbean food and drink entrepreneurs and businesses.

The Greencore Sustainability story is an evolving journey which Fran Haycock has been leading for the last two years.

The business has been heavily focused on establishing robust programme foundations – such as governance, transparency, risk and embedding – to ensure its Better Future Plan Strategy is set up for success. Of particular focus in Haycock’s time so far has been the upskilling of people and establishing a business-owned sustainability model. Greencore has invested in upskilling its board, group executive, plan owners, committee members to ensure they have a good foundational knowledge of key sustainability topics, enabling sustainability to be built into ‘business DNA’.

Under Haycock’s steer, the company has successfully decentralised sustainability, moving the accountability to three executive members and 10 business leaders. Both these initiatives have supercharged the business’s sustainability maturity and are helping drive results.

It has also placed its ‘business arms’ around healthy and sustainable diets – working to understand and measure it, and work collaboratively with customers to guide their thinking to manage any risk and unlock opportunity.

In human rights, Haycock has seen the business further strengthen its work across its own operations and supply chain. This area continues to evolve with heightened risk, so the team is working hard to increase its visibility, strengthen controls and collaborative insight partnerships.

Amie Burke is inclusion and diversity programme manager at IGD. Her role includes delivering insight and best practice on inclusivity for the food and consumer goods industry, as well as running IGD’s hugely successful reverse mentoring programme.

Burke has more than 14 years’ experience in the agriculture sector, with roles ranging from banking to business improvement across the whole supply chain. Prior to IGD, she worked for the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), where she focused on people sustainability in UK farming.

She is a passionate LGBTQ+ member and was recently named in The Grocer’s Power List as a top 10 activist making grocery a better industry for the LGBTQ+ community.

Gemma Cockshott is the head of multiple retail at Kingsland Drinks. In this role she has commercial responsibility for off trade.

Cockshott has 18 years of FMCG experience, including 12 years dedicated to the drinks industry.

At Kingsland she collaborates with a skilled team of nine to deliver innovative wine solutions to multiple retailers and discounters. Her role includes leveraging market insights and strategic planning to consistently drive business growth in high-pressure environments. She is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion, with a focus on empowering women in the workplace.

Key achievements include her collaboration with Tesco Group to launch six brands under the Aldi Price Match initiative and successful relaunch of Wairau Cove, Tesco’s largest wine brand.

As part of Wm Morrisons Supermarkets' wine team, she also played an instrumental role in achieving industry recognition, including the IWSC Supermarket of the Year award.

Cockshott also actively champions diversity initiatives, including mentoring women in the workplace and supporting their career progression within FMCG.