Women In The Food Industry

🧀🎄We’re coming up to Christmas, the busiest time of year for makers and sellers of cheese. With news of the French bemoaning the death of the cheeseboard (Did you know only 35% of French people still have a cheese course on a regular basis?) 🧀🧀We've teamed up with our friends Cookery School at Little Portland Street to bring you discounted tickets to a special event on artisan cheese where the proceeds go to Magic Breakfast. 📍🧀On Monday 25th November from 6-8.30pm Jenny Linford, writer & cheese podcaster, will be talking to an expert panel of artisan cheese makers and retailers all about making, maturing and selling cheese at Christmas. Jenny whose feature “The British Cheese Crisis” during lockdown was instrumental to the survival of many British producers. 🧀🎄She will be speaking to Mary Quicke MBE – award winning 4th generational cheesemaker (Quickes Traditional Ltd was established in 1540) widely considered the Godmother of British cheese, 3rd generational cheesemaker Jonny Crickmore of FEN FARM DAIRY LIMITED, producers of award winning cheeses including the acclaimed Baron Bigod and Joe Schneider maker of the creamy raw milk blue cheese from STICHELTON DAIRY LIMITED in Nottinghamshire! 🧀🧀Representing cheese retailers will be Bronwen Percival the technical director for Neal's Yard Dairy in London, and a representative from Paxton & Whitfield. 🧀🍷 The illustrious panel will share their thoughts on how we should be serving and storing our cheese this Christmas, which cheeses are perennial favourites and why. There will, of course, be samples to taste plus organic wine from VINTAGE ROOTS LIMITED & canapes. 🔗🔗 Discover how to get discounted tickets here https://lnkd.in/eG9J7WiT #artisancheese #cheesemaking #cheeseforchristmas #dairyfarming #womeninthefoodindustry

 🤔Did you know there are only eight female 3 Michelin star chefs in the world? 🌟🌟Well, the Roux Family is delighted to announce that one of those great chefs - acclaimed Basque chef Elena Arzak will lead the panel of judges for the The Roux Scholarship final in 2025 as Honorary President of Judges.  🗨️🗨️ Judge Emily Roux said: “I am very excited to be able to judge alongside Chef Elena this year. She is one of the eight female chefs in the world who hold three Michelin stars. I am extremely lucky to have had dinner at her restaurant Arzak Restaurante in San Sebastián and what an incredible experience it was. Utter perfection from start to finish!” 📍📍Don't forget that the 20th January 2025 is the deadline for applications. Perhaps you could join April Lily Partridge as one of the winners? 📍📍On 6th March 2025: Regional finalists compete, each cooking their written recipe plus a mystery box dessert recipe challenge. Regional finals take place at University College Birmingham and University of West London. Six national finalists will be shortlisted. 📍📍14th April 2025: National Final at the Alain Roux Culinary School, at Alain Roux's Waterside Inn Bray, and the award ceremony and dinner at Coworth Park. 🔗🔗Find out more about Elena Arzak & about entering The Roux Scholarship here https://lnkd.in/e_Jc7vwf #womeninthefoodindustry #rouxscholarship #michelinstarchefs

🎄📩 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, said Michael Bublé & if you've received our Women In The Food Industry newsletter you'll have seen Christmas is well & truly on our minds with a host of festive events. 🎄🎁 We have a Founders Festive Fayre on 29th November at Halifax flagship branch with Romy Fryer of Thomson & Scott NOUGHTY, Ruchi H., 🍵 Tina Chen from HumaniTea - Vegan Tea Lattes, Tastesmiths, Eva Thorne of The Garden of Eva, Live Luxwells, Tolani A. of Chapmans of London, Aygul Peker & Natasha Shamji. Thanks to Rakesh (Rax) Kalia & George T. for hosting. 🎄🍾🍷Our other big event is our Christmas Canapes & Festive Fireside Chat on 3rd of December at West London College, thanks to The Chefs' Forum, Catherine Farinha, Alexandra Duncan & Denise Charles. We are celebrating with drinks from Taste Union, Brixton Wine Club & Consorzio di Tutela della DOC Prosecco Thanks to Meat & Livestock Australia & First Choice, the students from the college are working with some of our chef community to put a range of canapes & bowl food. 🎁🎤There's also sample food & drink gift ideas from Shadia Al Hili, Chantal Coady OBE, Natasha Shamji & more. Followed by Fireside Chats with Anjula Devi, author & Consultant Chef from Man Utd, Christine Bailey Group Wellbeing Director of Thomas Franks Ltd & Louisa Payne Founder of Brixton Wine Club. 🎁 Add to that a charity raffle raising funds for BRITE Box - our last event of the year will certainly be one to remember. 📩 Our newsletter also has news from Kitch on how your brand can take part in social media benchmarking, a special offer of food photography from Liesel Bockl & discounted tickets for Cookery School at Little Portland Street's Artisan Cheese for Christmas event on 25th November thanks to Rosalind Rathouse - funds from this event are going to Magic Breakfast. 🔗 Find all the full details of the events & news in the link below: https://lnkd.in/esE6mWPG Look forward to seeing you at one or more! #christmasevents #womeninthefoodindustry #enewsletter

📢 New month, new announcements - Introducing our 2025 Ambassadors! 📢 We are excited to have our friends from across the food and drink industry join us to support and enhance the next edition of Food, Drink & Hospitality Week, by providing their knowledge and expertise to shape the success of the event. Our #IFE25 ambassadors include: 🍫Andy Richardson - Partner of European Food and Farming Partnerships and Member of UK Government Food and Drink Sector Council, Strategic Trade Advisory Group and Food & Drink Export Council 🍫Stefano Cuomo - CEO of Macknade 🍫James Bielby - Chief Executive of The Federation of Wholesale Distributors 🍫Freya O’Mara - Trading Manager of Pantry and Speciality Foods at Ocado Our #IFEM25 ambassadors include: 🌟Karen Green- Speaker, Author and Consultant of Buyerology Ltd 🌟Kerri Fidler- Head of Portfolio, Food for Later at Greencore 🌟Mex (Mecca) Ibrahim - Co-founder of Women in the Food Industry 🌟Richard Werran - Global Director, Consumer, Retail and Food at British Standards Institution (BSI) 🌟Ton Knipscheer - Independent Packaging Consultant, Executive Director of European Co-Packers Association Find out more about our wonderful ambassadors here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gida9Rcq

🙏 Thanks to Awil Mohamoud of School Food Matters for interviewing me as part of #BlackHistoryMonth. He said: "To round off #BlackHistoryMonth, we interviewed our incredible Trustee and Co-founder of Women In The Food Industry, Mex about the importance of representation, recognition and equality in the food sector and beyond. 🔗Read our latest blog (and share)👇 https://lnkd.in/evrC8FWd 🌟In addition to sharing how Women In The Food Industry was founded we discussed our recent event which featured chef & food writer Lara Luck, Natasha Orumbie aka The Vegan Patty Lady, Tieyan Eweka-Olorunfemi co-founder of Jollof Mama & Caydie Pierre Morris founder of Jerk & Lobster about how these women had built successful businesses in the face of challenges of recognition, funding & remaining true to their cultural identities. 🌟We recognised that more diverse voices such as Melissa Thompson & Jimi Famurewa need to be part of the mainstream media to help represent the wide range of people in the food industry. Also recognised that chefs such as Adejoke B. owner of Chishuru (the first black woman to gain a Michelin star in the UK) and the acclaimed Asma Khan founder of Darjeeling Express, (the first British chef to be featured on Netflix's The Chefs Table - who has been a huge inspiration to me) are now able to bring wider awareness the fact that successful restaurateurs don't always fit the image of "celebrity chefs" that we see in the media - ie women of colour! 💡As Beyonce & many other people have said "If you can't see it, you can't be it". Here's to seeing more representation not just for one month but throughout the year! #womeninthefoodindustry #representationmatters

I'm pleased to say that I am one of the official ambassadors for Food Drink & Hospitality Week taking place 17-19 March 2025 at Excel London The week encompasses major trade shows IFE Manufacturing, IFE - International Food & Drink Event, The Pub Show and HRC.  It's an honour to be one of the ambassadors representing various sectors within food, drink, and hospitality, and I'm really looking forward to help shape the future of the UK’s largest gathering for the industry. “We are thrilled to have such an esteemed group of ambassadors on board for Food, Drink &; Hospitality Week 2025,” said Food, Drink & Hospitality Week Portfolio Director Philippa Christer of Montgomery Group. “Their expertise and commitment to their sectors will be crucial in making the event a success, and we look forward to their contributions in driving the conversation forward on the future of food, drink, and hospitality.” Here's a list of us all - IFE: Andy Richardson, Chair, Food & Drink Council, Stefano Cuomo , CEO, Macknade Fine Foods , James Bielby, CEO, Federation of Wholesale Distributors, Freya O’Mara, Trading Manager – Pantry and Speciality IFE Manufacturing:  Kerri Fidler, Head of Portfolio Food for Later, Greencore Karen Green, Consultant, Food Industry Expert, Richard Werran, Global Director Retail, Consumer & Food, BSI, Ton Knipscheer , Executive Director, European Co-Packers Association & myself as co-founder of Women In The Food Industry HRC: Kris Hall MIH, Founder, The Burnt Chef Project, Robert Richardson, FIH MI , CEO, Institute of Hospitality, Kirstin Hatherley, Chair, ceda, Katie Deem , Director, 4C Associates Julian George, Founder, Future Plate & Stanislava Blagoeva, Co-Founder, European Pizza & Pasta Show  The Pub Show: Steven Alton CBII, CEO, British Institute of Innkeeping & Emma McClarkin OBE , CEO, British Beer and Pub Association Find out more about the UK’s biggest celebration of industry innovation: Food, Drink & Hospitality Week here - https://lnkd.in/ekCefR3v #hospitalityindustry

 📺 Women's Safety meets Hollywood nice guys in 30 seconds !! 🙌Kudos to Saoirse Ronan, who, when she got a word in edgeways, silenced the male guests on Graham Norton's latest show with her 10-word comment about a mobile phone being used for self-defence. "That's what girls have to think about all the time" before adding "Am I right, ladies?" 📍The clip has gone viral & highlights how efforts to keep safe are built into a woman's DNA. Cheer Up Love put it succinctly "this clip is a really good example of how you can have a room of the most progressive, least problematic, least toxic, total "nice guy" men - and the lived experience of half the population is still the furthest thing from their minds. And, is something the only woman in the room needs to remind them of. " 🫶Our recent Women In The Food Industry panel on Women's Safety in Hospitality was very well attended & we actually had more men in the room than normal for our events. Keep coming, guys! 🙏Thanks to our panellists writer & activist Jamie Klingler of Reclaim These Streets , Sofia Gassne Head of HR at Hawksmoor, Mollie W. Floor supervisor at Seven Dials Market and Miranda Hibbert, Vulnerabilities Manager of Richmond and Wandsworth Borough Councils for their insights, candid thoughts and practical takeaways in that event. 📅 We are pleased to announce that our friends at KERB are planning a follow-up breakfast about the London Mayor’s Women's Night Safety Charter, so please get in touch with Priya Narain and Mollie W. if you would like to get involved. 🔗Meanwhile, check out the brief recap of our Women's Safety in Hospitality Panel event on 14th October in the link below https://lnkd.in/eGFjaZm7 If you've not already seen the clip check it out on our Instagram https://lnkd.in/eE_HMnMg #WomensSafety #SaoirseRonan #GrahamNortonShow #WomensSafetyInHospitality #WomensNightSafetyCharter #AmIRightLadies

🤔Did you know that the founder of Rosa's Thai is not called Rosa, but Saiphin Moore ? 🤔Did you know the name came from an East End cafe in Spitalfields called Rosa's where the restaurant was born? 🌟My favourite cuisine (if I had to plump for just one) is Thai food, so I was delighted to be invited to the opening of the latest restaurant in Saiphin's Thai chain in Kingston, West London / Surrey. 🤔 I always find it a challenge when small independent chains grows to the size that Rosa's Thai is now. Will they stay true to their authentic flavours yet satisfy a Gen Z audience looking for the next new fusion craze? In my opinion Rosa's Thai has. It has some brand new dishes added to its menu for 2024, which nod to popular dishes but are still very Thai. You'll find out more about them on Women In The Food Industry's Instagram feed https://lnkd.in/ewvFUtdY 📚📚It was a pleasure to meet Saiphin, who kindly gave us a signed copy of her cookbook. As well over 100 Thai recipes with a modern twist, in the cookbook, Saiphin explains the background to the famous Rosa's Thai Doily. It looks quintessentially British at first glance but has rows of Tuk Tuks, monkeys, noodle bowls, British teapots, spoons, forks & more representing the story of Rosa's Thai Café. 🙏Thanks Saiphin, Rosa's Thai & Vanessa Zard at Tonic Communications for putting on a great launch party at Kingston and I'm sure the new opening & new menu will be a success. #ThaiFood #womeninthefoodindustry #newopening #foodtrends

🫘 About last night - #SpillTheBeans from #TheOG 📸📸A few photos from a great night at Colin Mordi's #SpillTheBeans. It was the second Spill The Beans of the year, even though myself and most of the people I spoke to last night kept saying "last year" when we spoke about that amazing evening in a South London community centre in New Cross, which was packed to the rafters and spilled onto the street. 🌟🌟I had the pleasure of being on a panel at that Spill The Beans which was actually only in April 2024 (& not a year ago!) Host Indie Love Gordon said that made me one of #TheOG & there was a definite feeling of being one of The Old Guard / Original Gangsters / Old GOATs or whatever your definition of OG is when I walked into Halifax's flagship branch on Tottenham Court Road last night. #SpillTheBeans has come on a long way since April, it was more ambitious, there were more panels, there were pitches to national supermarket & artisan store food buyers, there was more space (although it was still VERY full), there was a printed programme, stylish branded goody bags HOWEVER what was the same was the huge sense of energy & optimism with black and ethnic (or global majority) food founders getting together to eat, pitch, present and network with food industry peers. 📅📅You'll see tons of posts from people on LinkedIn & other socials reflecting the night & I had a wonderful time & look forward to collaborating with Colin Mordi on a special event with Women In The Food Industry in May 2025 (watch this space as the details are under wraps but it'll be fun!) 🌟🌟For now a shout out to friends old & new from last night : Nicola Macdonald, Natasha Orumbie, Alexa Fernandez, Ruby Chagger, Eva Thorne, Nikki Garg - KWERKY, Tolani A., Aisha Jade, Dapur Mariae, Shadia Al Hili, Jane Visram, Simon Georgiou, Dominique Woolf, Monique Farquharson, Dawn Burton, Saida Bairak, Heerum Fleary, Patrick Wright, Tobias Azizah, Regina Antony, Charmaine Trotman, Lauren O'Donnell, Claire Roper, Nadia Hamila, Jessica Horwill & many others (LinkedIn tagging restrictions & character restrictions mean I'll run out of space!) 🙏Plus a huge thanks to the team at Halifax who have been huge supporters to us at Women In The Food Industry since that first #SpillTheBeans of 2024 - Neil Bland , George T. & Chris Dyer who did a great job managing such a large number of people (plus Rakesh (Rax) Kalia - who was on a well deserved holiday!) Here's to #SpillTheBeans2025 #networking #foodindustry #womeninthefoodindustry

🌍🌱🍷Great day yesterday, with the theme of #SusatainbleFoodSystems and France! 🌱🍷🪱 Started off with an afternoon of wine tasting organised by Sud de France - l'Occitanie which I was invited to by Emily Barnes co-founder of Taste Union importers of bio-dynamic & organic wines. They very kindly sponsored the drinks at our private screening of Claire Mackenzie's hit #RegenerativeAgriculture documentary Six Inches of Soil earlier this year. It was great to sample a huge variety of wines from the South of France, although interestingly Taste Union's were amongst the very few that were bio-dynamic / natural wines. 🌍🌱👨🌾👩🌾 Then early evening, I attended an event hosted by Cédric Petitpas Global Partnerships for Sustainable & Regenerative Food Systems at the London campus of EDHEC Business School. He had pulled together an insightful panel discussing how by working together across a variety of disciplines we can improve our food system and why it's critical if we want a sustainable future. 🌍🌱👨🌾👩🌾After the panel, I had a great conversation with the chair of the panel Katherine Nathan, CEO of RATCHET, who is produced the first #podcast series for the Guild of Fine Food's #GreatTasteAwards (it was news to me they had a podcast series, but I learnt that it was down to Katherine's tenacity in pitching the idea to them & running with the whole production & series of interviews with food producers & farmers around the country). 🌍🌱♻️🪱Also a pleasure to meet & chat with fellow panellist Charlotte Ward from the Climate and Nature Fund at Unilever. I've been hearing more & more about some of the larger food & drinks brands involvement in regenerative farming which is encouraging. At the Food Matters Live event at Ascot a few weeks ago (which I will get round to re-capping as it was excellent) Juliane Caillouette Noble MD of The Sustainable Restaurant Association & Harriet Bell Regenerative Farming Lead at Riverford Organic Farmers had both spoken of initiatives where some of the food giants are looking at ways to grow & farm things differently in a reaction to climate change & to make the soil healthier for the future of our food system. 💡 It was encouraging to see NGOs, academics, scientists, food tech investors, farmers & food giants coming together. Underpinning the discussion was a topic that I & many other inspiring Women In The Food Industry such as Stephanie Slater & team at School Food Matters, Rosalind Rathouse of Cookery School at Little Portland Street , Naomi Duncan and Nicole Pisani of Chefs in Schools constantly return to about the importance of food education. 🤔 The value of food & farming has been turned on its head. People will happily spend £4 on a cup a coffee each day but think that spending the same amount (or less) on a chicken once a week is OK! 💡Thankfully more people are working together to make change happen. #sustainability #womeninthefoodindustry #farming #foodproduction #wineindustry