CIEH Food Safety Conference

Andrew Joret, Chair at British Egg Industry Council. Andrew has spent more than 45 years working in senior leadership roles within the British egg industry. His specialism in agronomy and technology saw Andrew play an integral role in the development and launch of the British Lion Code. As Chair of the British Egg Industry Council, Andrew has led the evolution of the independently audited British Lion Code of Practice, firmly positioning it as the world’s leading egg safety Code. He has overseen numerous milestone achievements, breaking down potential barriers to egg consumption, most significantly the FSA’s approval for British Lion Eggs to be eaten runny by vulnerable groups.

Andrew Quinn, Temporary Head of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). In October 2018, Andrew joined the NFCU as Deputy Head, responsible for the Investigations Command and its operations into serious fraud allegations within food supply chains. He previously served 30 years as a Police Officer specialising in criminal investigations and from 2003 served in the National Crime Squad, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Crime Agency where his final position was the Regional Head of Investigations responsible for the Midlands, Wales and West region where he led on national and international serious organised crime investigations across a variety of crime threats.

Anthony Baldock CEnvH FCIEH, Director of Health and Wellbeing, Ashford Borough Council. Anthony joined Ashford Borough Council in 2021 to set up the new Port Health service based at Sevington. He has been an Environmental Health Practitioner since 1987. Anthony worked in Local Government prior to the formation of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and has extensive experience in the meat industry including fresh meat inspection at processing plants. He also worked for Hastings Borough Council where he was responsible for the fish market and overseeing the largest shore based fishing fleet in the UK. Anthony has spoken at national conferences on the topic of Port Health and Food Safety. He was the strategic lead at Crawley Borough Council where he was responsible for operations at London Gatwick Airport (LGW). He worked on the implementation of controls concerning imported food not of animal origin in 2009, along with products of animal origin and infectious disease controls related to Swine flu, Ebola and Covid-19. Whilst at Gatwick, he was responsible for two audits for the EU Food and Veterinary Office. He attended numerous EU Training missions concerning imported food and also acted as Chair of the Airports Committee for the Association of Port Health Authorities.

Christian Polzin, Environmental Health Commercial Team Leader at South Kesteven District Council. Christian has worked for South Kesteven District Council since 1994, the last 20 years dealing with food, safety and public health matters. He became team leader just prior to the pandemic. Christian said: "The work and challenges that came our way brought the team closer together. A combination of willingness, support and professional curiosity sees our team taking regular prosecutions." Christian previously acted as communications secretary for the national 'Scores on the Doors' group with his articles published in The Independent and The Telegraph.

Claire Turner MCIEH, Environmental Health Officer at West Northamptonshire Council. Claire has worked in Local Government for 20 years starting off in Private Sector Housing and then moving to Food and Health and Safety in 2005. She qualified as an Environmental Health Officer in 2016 after completing her BSc Health and Environment degree at Nottingham Trent University. She has been involved with several successful food hygiene prosecutions and was the lead investigation officer for the Crewe Arms food poisoning outbreak in 2018.

Gary Fern, Safety, Health and Environmental Manager at Bakkavor Desserts. Bakkavor Desserts supplies desserts for the major supermarkets as a SHE manager. Gary is a successful EHS leader with over twenty years’ experience combined in EHS management and electrical engineering, working in the food and drinks industry. Successful in developing, implementing, and auditing EHS systems. Leadership experience in supporting multi-disciplinary teams. Gary recently completed an MSc in strategic leadership in the food and drink industry at Lincoln University.

Dr Hazel Gowland MREHIS FIFST FRSPH, Expert Patient and Consumer Advocate at Allergy Action. Hazel is a leading food allergy advocate, expert patient, consumer, researcher and university lecturer. As a food hypersensitive consumer, she informs and shapes allergen risk assessment and develops innovative and effective training programmes. Her research includes the quality of life and cost of living with food hypersensitivity, understanding and recording severe and fatal reactions and the regulatory context of food allergy.

Hazel Dunthorne, Environmental Health Officer at South Kesteven District Council. Hazel qualified as an Environmental Health Officer in 2004 after completing her BSc in Environmental Health at Nottingham Trent University. She has worked for the Commercial Team at South Kesteven District Council for 19 years in food and health and safety and has been involved in several successful food safety prosecutions.

Helen Buckingham CEnvH MCIEH, Chartered EHP. Helen Buckingham CEnvH MCIEH is a Chartered EHP of 30 years, formerly working as a Strategic Director of multiple services within local government and as an Assistant Director within BEIS, leading on cross-government stakeholder engagement in regulatory policy and delivery. Now working for herself, Helen’s clients include CIEH, FSA, CTSI, OPSS, several local authorities and for the CLOSHA/Fab training organisations on regulatory leadership.

Jennifer Hopkins, Head of Border Target Operating Model Policy at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Jennifer joined the FSA’s TOM programme last October to lead FSA’s policy input into the development of the Government’s new border regime proposals. An area of particular focus has been coordinating the FSA’s risk management input on the application of import controls that will apply under the BTOM. Before taking up this role, Jennifer headed up the FSA’s Trade Policy Advice team for four years, establishing and shaping the FSA’s new responsibilities in international trade post EU-Exit. This followed a two-year secondment in 2017-18 at Defra, working cross-government to open new agri-food export markets during which she hosted nine trading partner delegations to audit UK SPS systems. Jennifer’s background is in local authority, having qualified as an Environmental Health Officer in 2009 (and awarded CIEH student of the year), she went on to spend around 7 years practicing in Reading Borough Council and London Borough of Harrow, and then had a short stint as a compliance manager in the hospitality sector. Her first roles in the FSA involved working on the Food Law Code of Practice and in Hygiene Policy.

Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. 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 together won healthy and sustainable food standards for Whitehall, prisons and parts of the armed forces, and in NHS Standard Contracts for hospitals. She now sits on the steering group for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, campaigning to end the overuse of antibiotics in farming. Kath's background is as a food campaigner and consultant to organisations such as the Food Commission, National Consumer Council, National Federation of Women’s Institutes, Food Climate Research Network, Greater London Authority and the London Development Agency.

Kathryn Gilbertson, Partner, Harrison Clark Rickerbys. Kathryn is a solicitor who advises companies on food, health and safety, environmental and regulatory compliance issues. Renowned for challenging enforcement decisions, she has successfully taken cases to the Court of Appeal and Upper Tribunal, as well as through the criminal courts. Kathryn is passionate about food safety – helping food manufacturers, farmers, retailers, and marketeers understand their obligations. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health and Society of Food Hygiene and Technology.

Katie Pettifer, Strategy and Regulatory Compliance Director at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Katie is responsible for the FSA’s strategy, communications, legal, regulatory compliance and governance work. Katie also leads the FSA’s Achieving Business Compliance Programme, which is reforming the way that food businesses are regulated by local authorities. Before joining the FSA in July 2021, Katie was the Public Policy Director at Ofcom, where she played a major role in shaping Ofcom’s work to improve mobile and broadband coverage across the UK and to develop new regulation to protect people from harmful content online. She also led on Ofcom’s diversity and inclusion strategy. Before that, Katie spent two decades in the civil service, and held senior roles in the Ministry of Justice, the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Office.

Dr Lisa Ackerley CEnvH FRSPH, Director of Public Health and Hygiene Engagement at Reckitt. Lisa is a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner who has worked in local and central government, academia, and for 30 years as an independent consultant, providing advice to food industry sectors and the mass media on food safety issues for businesses and consumer hygiene. As an adviser to UKHospitality, she represented the organisation at the FSA Expert Advisory Group on Regulating our Future, on industry liaison groups, FSA led workshops and on the Safe and Local Supplier Approval (SALSA) board. She joined Reckitt in 2021, where she works on internal and external scientific engagement across the company, including working on B2B projects and hygiene partnerships such as COP26 and the Commonwealth Games. Recently she has been involved in projects on Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment in relation to hygiene interventions.

Louise Hosking CEnvH MCIEH CMIOSH CMaPS PIEMA SIIRSM, Executive Director of Environmental Health at CIEH. Louise is a Chartered Environmental Health Professional with extensive experience across public, private and third sectors working across a range of industries. In 2021, she was elected by peers to serve as the 55th IOSH President. Louise joined CIEH in May 2023 with a background in transformational leadership, social sustainability, governance and building psychologically safe and inclusive teams. Louise facilitates opportunities for outward engagement via CIEH’s presidential, policy and events teams. She is harnessing the power of members and stakeholders to promote the role of environmental health professionals and the prevention first business case which comes from supporting the five pillars of environmental health locally, nationally and globally.

Louise Mansfield, Legal Director at Bevan Brittan. Louise specialises in health and safety and criminal regulatory law and advises on a range of regulatory legal issues including food safety, health and safety, building safety, fire safety, product liability, white collar crime, contentious environmental and transport law. She represents a mixture of clients, from large multi-national organisations to individuals, across a range of industries, including construction, manufacturing, care, energy, waste, higher education, utilities, retail and charities.

Dr Maria Diaz, Research Scientist at the Quadram Institute Bioscientist. With over a decade of experience in the Food Microbiology field, Maria possesses extensive knowledge in studying bacterial communities within food and food production environments. Her primary focus lies in utilising genomic and metagenomic pipelines to investigate the mechanisms behind the survival of Listeria monocytogenes in food manufacturing settings. Maria's expertise extends to collaborating with both the food industry and government agencies, where she applies her platform and knowledge to address real-world challenges.

Marisa Heath, Chief Executive of the Plant-Based Food Alliance UK. Marisa has worked for over 18 years as a policy adviser and campaigner on sustainable and ethical food systems, climate change and animal welfare. She has run campaigns on behalf of a number of sector groups, relating to food production, food waste, nutrition, climate change, biodiversity, and animal welfare standards. Marisa is also a founding member of the International Plant-based Food Working Group including U.S., Canada, China, India, Mexico and the EU. The Plant-based Food Alliance represents members from industry, NGOs and farming including Alpro, Oatly, Upfield, Sheese. Pro Veg and Quorn. It advocates for more policy support for growth of the sector and involves keeping Government informed on key trends, opportunities in investment and export, regulatory impacts and the alignment to environmental objectives.

Maria Masoura PhD, Food and Drink Risk Consultant at Consulting Technology, Campden BRI. Maria has over 8 years of research experience in microbiology, and biotechnology, including regulatory and research activity in food science, and molecular biology showcased by a number of collaborative projects in international research institutes and the private sector. Maria has been teaching Food Microbiology and Safety/Regulation at both undergraduate and postgraduate programs and has supervised MSc projects in Chemical Engineering and Biosciences. Prior to Campden BRI, Maria worked as a Scientific Coordinator at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), conducting the Peer Review and Risk assessment of plant protection products while also working in other departmental activities related to Food Science including food additives and novel foods. At Campden BRI, Maria provides consultancy in the areas of microbiological/chemical food safety and regulation and works in government-funded research.

Neil Beeken, Commercial Regulatory Manager at North East Lincolnshire Council. Neil qualified as an Environmental Health Officer in 2000 and was appointed as Senior EHO at North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) in 2001, covering inland food safety, health and safety and port health for Grimsby and Immingham ports. After promotion to Principal EHO and technical lead for food safety in 2004, Neil became service manager for the team in 2009. He was subsequently appointed Commercial Regulatory Manager in 2019, which incorporated Trading Standards into the existing remit. Neil has led NELC’s approach to EU Exit preparations, which has had significant implications for local food and logistics industries and local authority delivery of import / export controls on relevant products, including operation of a Border Control Post.

Richard Watson, Co-Head of Target Operating Model Design and Implementation at Defra. Richard co-leads on the design for the Target Operating Model within Defra, which will define the future SPS arrangements for the importation of agri-food into GB. This follows on from work leading on the changes needed following the introduction of SPS controls for GB exports moving to the EU following EU exit, for example fish export policy and, prior to the Windsor Agreement, policy related to retail goods moving into Northern Ireland from GB.

Tom Samuel, Communications and Engagement Lead for the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). Tom is the strategic lead for communications and engagement planning and delivery across all Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) elements of the proposed new regime for the UK border. Tom has been in Defra communications for 5 years, delivering Brexit communications to help support UK businesses prepare for transition and post-Brexit trading changes. His team will be leading all communications and engagement activity on SPS changes resultant from the proposals in the BTOM, including communications to GB, EU and non-EU businesses.