Our Ambassadors

ADRIAN BOSWELL

BUYER, SELFRIDGES

Adrian Boswell, a fishmonger by trade, has held down roles as a Retail Admin Assistant, Allocator, and Merchandiser before moving into the world of Buying. Prior to his current role as a Senior Food Buyer, Adrian worked his way up through the ranks as a Buyers Admin and Assistant Buyer. Here he has spent the last 20 years gaining experience in premium fresh food retail. Adrian has extensive knowledge of the different food areas, including cheese, deli, fresh fish, smoked fish, caviar, truffle, meat & poultry, F&V and more recently Health & Wellbeing.

LAURA ROBERTS

FOUNDER, LAURA'S LARDER

After working for 21 years in marketing and PR for media and tech companies, Laura made the cliché move of chasing her dream. Laura’s Larder was born in 2020 and she’s never looked back. A deli is more than food, it’s part of a community and Laura’s Larder works hard to be just that.

JASON GIBB

FOUNDER, BREAD & JAM

Jason is an experienced food entrepreneur, investor and community builder with a colourful career path – he has produced Emmy nominated TV shows, written highly acclaimed books, published numerous academic papers in biochemistry and crafted award-winning olive oil. His career in food started when he threw in a 10 year career as a Hollywood TV producer and bought an abandoned olive grove in Le Marche, Italy. He created an olive oil brand called Nudo which was sold around the world and in British stores such as Selfridges, Harrods, John Lewis and Waitrose. After 10 fruitful years Jason successfully exited from the olive oil business and co-founded Bread & Jam, the UK’s first food founders’ festival. This annual conference, which attracts over 1000 attendees, is a one-stop shop for any food or drink FMCG business looking for start, scale or expand. He also created the FoodHub Forum on Facebook, which is a lively community of over 13,000 food and drink entrepreneurs. He is working on a new plant business, hoping to launch spring 2023, and is an investor in and advisor for a number of businesses that are focused on encouraging plant based eating and tackling the climate crisis.

JEREMY BOWEN

OWNER, JB FOODIE SOLUTION

Jeremy's back room noise is food in all its commercial joy and jbfoodsolutions walk & talk it. He loathes the word Consultant but takes pride in the word Trader, as him ( and his awesome team ) trade their knowledge and experience in this commercial space that is Food. They make things happen, put money in the till and delight in helping their portfolio of customers propel. No website or landing page for jbfoodsoltions as they work on personal recommendation only. Jbfoodsoltions is heading towards its 10th anniversary proving that its all about kind commercial consideration, truth and measurable success.

JOHN FARRAND

MANAGING DIRECTOR, GUILD OF FINE FOOD

Now well known in the fine food industry, John began his career studying Agriculture & Food Industry Management at Wye College. This oddly named but all-encompassing course covered farming and production as well as sales and marketing, which proved to be the perfect grounding for a career running the Guild of Fine Food.

At the heart of the fine food world since 1995, the Guild supports and promotes speciality food producers and the independent delis, farm shops and food halls that sustain them.

MARCUS CARTER

FOUNDER, ARTISAN FOOD CLUB

Marcus grew up in North Wales and left school at 16 to work on sheep and cattle farms in Australia. Marcus returned to the UK in 1988 to study Agricultural Management before entering sales for the dairy-farming sector. Marcus’s passion was always food based and in 2008, further to 10 years at Patchwork Pates, the family business, he started his own BBQ sauce range. Armed with this knowledge and personal experiences of the challenges that food producers face, Marcus created ‘Carter Food House’ a national wholesaler to butchers and fish shops and the ‘Virtual Farmers Market’, an online sales platform for artisan producers.  Over the past 12 years he has set up and run the Artisan Food Club Online.  The Food Club allows retailers to find small emerging brands to fill range gaps from outside of their local area when they don’t have a local supplier.  This brings a point of difference to the retail shop and ultimately increases basket spend.

STEPHEN MINALL

OWNER, MOVING FOOD

Moving Food has a successful track record in launching new products into the major Retail Multiples within the UK and Europe. Moving Food works within innovation in food technology (long shelf life FMCG brands to chill chain expertise) helping SME’s and foodies the “idea creators” get to market. Stephen writes for trade journeys, presents at Retail Consortiums in UK and Europe and has been seen on BBC Business News as the leading expert in food related stories. Stephen judges both the Food Service Awards ‘The Cateys’ and The Quality Food Awards. Stephen is an entrepreneur who has extensive experience within retail and food service operations on a global scale.
 

STEVE WALPOLE

FREELANCE FOOD DEVELOPER AND CHEF CONSULTANT

Steve has always loved food and knew very early on that he wanted to be a chef and, after over 30 years in the industry, that passion is still going strong. Having worked in many different food sectors throughout his career, he enjoys the different challenges that food consultancy now offers.  It enables Steve to work with a diverse range of clients on a variety of very different products and projects, and keeps him at the forefront of food development.

TARA MEI

CO-FOUNDER, BREAD & JAM

FOUNDER, MAHALO

Tara Mei is the cofounder of Bread & Jam, the largest community of challenger food and drink brands in the UK and the founder of Mahalo, a boutique distributor of emerging food and drink brands to the speciality and fine food retail sector, supplying over 500 farm shops, delis, garden centres and cafes nationwide. 

VHARI RUSSELL

FOUNDER, THE FOOD MARKETING EXPERTS

Vhari Russell is the founder of The Food Marketing Experts, a full-service agency specializing in food and drink. She has over 20 years of experience in marketing, PR, and social media. She has worked for companies such as Winterbotham Darby developing products for the multiples, through to sales and account management for smaller more artisan brands, looking after accounts such as Harrods, Liberty, Waitrose, and Boots.

Since setting up The Food Marketing Experts over 10 years ago she and her team have worked to grow brands such as Warner's gin and Seggiano. Vhari has a wealth of experience in developing brands and fully understands what needs to be done to support sales and continued growth. 

She is also the Founder of Grub Club Events, a multi-award-winning networking group for the food and drink industry. It is a must for anyone in the industry and offers a great platform to come together over great food and drink. Vhari is also the founder of one of our charity partners Creating Natures Corridors, who are on a mission to help replant the UK with trees and hedging.