Click on each mentor to find out more about them
Hannah graduated from the University of Nottingham with a degree in BSc Food Science and Nutrition in July 2023. She has spent her early career working within Sensory and Consumer Science teams for a number of businesses. Her passion for sensory science began whilst undertaking an industrial placement year at Givaudan, working with sensory scientists and flavourists to support research projects for oral care products.
Since graduating from university, she has worked for MMR as a sensory panel leader, running expert sensory panels for a client site and is now working at McCormick as a Sensory Analyst, supporting sensory validation testing across a range of business units.
Matti is an AfN Registered Nutritionist working within the FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) industry, at Huel. Matti specialises in the formulation of food products, ingredient management and product testing. with a background in supplement formulation.
I am the Sustainability Manager at Levy, who are the market leader in the sport, arena, conference centre and hospitality sectors delivering great food & drink to incredible venues across the UK & Europe such as the O2 Arena and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. I joined Levy in April this year, having previously worked at BOL for just under 6 years as their Technical & Sustainability Manager. BOL is a plant-based food brand sold in all the major retailers, so I have experience both in food retail and now with Levy, the food service sector.
Jess studied Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Nottingham, and now works as a Food Innovation Technologist at the University's Food Innovation Centre. She works cross-functionally to assist small, medium and large food businesses with their product development, through consultancy and practical work. Jess also has experience in working for a social enterprise bakery and Nestlé cereals, and competed in the European Finals of EcoTrophelia in 2023, with a group of her coursemates.
Ben has over 18 years experience in the food industry working across both manufacturing and retail, he is a fellow of the IFST, an active member of the Food Safety SIG and this year’s Vice President.
He started his career at Bakkavor where he was selected for their technical graduate scheme and throughout his 8 years there he worked in a variety of technical roles covering Quality Assurance, Process Development and Site Technical Management in the chilled convenience food sector. His last role was site Technical Manager at the Bakkavor Desserts site in Newark.
He joined Tesco in 2012 as a Technical Manager in the Convenience department and during his time at Tesco he covered Technical Manager positions responsible for the majority of chilled prepared foods areas. Tesco gave him the opportunity to progress his career and lead technical teams as Head of Technical across a number of diverse and interesting categories including Frozen Food, Bakery, Dairy, Impulse, Beers, Wines and Spirits and Chilled Prepared Foods.
His current position is Head of Technical for Tesco Central Europe which covers the Tesco businesses in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In this role he leads the technical teams responsible for food and non-food technical, store standards, technical operations, packaging, sustainable diets and general merchandise.
Becca has worked in the food industry for over 10 years. For the past 4 years she’s worked at innocent. Initially Becca was helping innocent set up their first factory based in Rotterdam. Now Becca looks after the technical/sustainable management of a ‘basket’ of fruit.
I have been in the field of sensory and consumer research, in both clientside and agency roles across a career spanning 30 years. I began my professional journey working in a laboratory environment, supporting a Quality Assurance programme for raw materials for a large Blue Chip company before moving into the Consumer Research discipline as a research executive in a small consumer research agency team.
Over the next 12 years I built up hands on experience of different tools and techniques, from sensory evaluation through quantitative consumer research (and statistical analysis) through to qualitative research, across a wide range of product categories, encompassing food, beverage, non-food and pharmaceutically active products. I then moved into a clientside role, where for the best part of a decade, I was in a Global role within the Chocolate Category for Mondelez, overseeing sensory and consumer research activities across value management, product quality improvements and innovation projects.
For the last 8 years I have been Client Services Director at SAM Sensory Dimensions, where I lead a team of 30 researchers who each partner with client companies covering a broad range of food, beverage and personal and home care categories.
Hi I am Jade Murby and I currently work for Samworth Brothers under the meals category as a Senior Development Technologist.
Samworth Brothers is the first company I have worked for since graduating University.
I love my job and the people with the perks of eating food daily while developing new and exciting ready meals!