Gert W. Meijer

Prof. Dr. Gert Meijer is the Chair of the European Technology Transfer ‘Food for Life’ since February 2015. He is also Deputy Head of Corporate Regulatory and Scientific Affairs of Nestlé. He was formerly the Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Life Sciences Institute, Europe, and also held a number of senior positions with the Unilever group including Vice-President of Nutrition & Health R&D and the Director of Unilever Health Institute. He is also a visiting Professor at the University of Ulster.

Frans Egberts

Mr. Frans Egberts is Managing Director at Henri van de Bilt B.V., a Small and Medium Enterprise based in Beuningen (The Netherlands) producing deli meats from single meat cuts in a traditional way. With a background in Food Science, he has more than 30 years of work experience in the food industry and he is the current Vice President of FoodDrinkEurope, the European Federation of Food and Drink Industries.

Luca Cocolin

Prof. Dr Luca Simone Cocolin is a Professor of Food Microbiology at the University of Turin (Italy) Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Torino, Italy. He is author of about 250 publications, most of them (ca. 160) in peer-reviewed international journals. Prof. Cocolin is also an Executive Board Member of the International Committee on Food Microbiology and Hygiene (ICFMH) and Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Food Microbiology. His areas of expertise are detection methods for foodborne pathogens, the microbial ecology of fermented foods, in vitro and in situ bioprotection and the human microbiome.

Dimitrios Ladikos

Dr Dimitrios Ladikos received his PhD from Leeds University (UK) back in 1986. In 1989 he was appointed Head of the R&D Department of Yiotis S.A., a Greek based Small and Medium Enterprise producing baby food. In 2003 he became a Member of the Yiotis Board and he has ever since actively participated in the company's formulating decisions on innovation strategy and growth. During all these years, Dr Ladikos has been influential in numerous patents and research projects for Yiotis S.A., acting also as evaluator and rapporteur for EU research programs during FP6, FP7 and lately Horizon 2020.He is also the owner of the EUROFOOD (consulting firm for the food and pharmaceutical industry) since 2008.

Geert Maesmans

Geert earned an engineering degree in Chemical and Biological industries, a doctorate degree in Applied Biological Sciences and a postgraduate degree in Business Administration from KU Leuven. He started his career as assistant professor at a polytechnic university. Since 1995, he has held several R&D positions at DERA Food Technology, Tate & Lyle and at Cargill since 2007. He’s now the global R&D Director for the Cargill Starches, Sweeteners & Texturizers group.

Tim Hogg

Assoc. Prof. Tim Hogg received his PhD in Food Microbiology from the University of Reading in 1989, and soon afterwards joined the Escola Superior de Biotecnologia at the Universidade Católica of Porto, where he became an Associate Professor in 2001. Since 2009 he is responsible for a research centre with 100 researchers, 50 of which are PhDs.

Gerhard Wagner

Liisa Lähteenmäki

Liisa Lähteenmäki is Professor in Consumer Behaviour and Food Choice at the Aarhus University in Denmark. She received a PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham, U.K. in 1991. Her research focuses on consumer behaviour in food domain with a special interest in factors affecting food choices and product-related perceptions; special interest in the role of health, novelty, and sustainability in food-related behaviours, widening the perspective from choices to food provisioning practices and routines. She has published more than 85 original peer-reviewed international articles and 12 book chapters in the subject.

Félix Sancho

Félix Sancho holds a position as Center of Excellence (CoE) and Global Technical Director at GB Foods. His career evolved in the areas of R&D, innovation, and regulatory affairs in other relevant multinationals such as , Kraft, Candia-Yoplait, and Corporcion Peñasanta, often in directorship positions. He has also working experience at the European Commission DG RTD and holds a PhD in nutrition by the University of Bordeaux. His multiple experiences have specialised Félix in Scientific and Corporate Institutional Affairs, Regulatory & Scientific Affairs, Product Development & Innovation (R&D), Nutrition, Quality Corporate Management, and Sustainability affairs. He has been in the ETP 'Food for Life' since 2019.

Karin Schwarz

Karin holds a position as Professor for Food Technology since 1999 at the University of Kiel, Germany, where she holds also the position of Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science and Vice President for Research, Technology, Early Career Researchers. She is also the Vice president of Kiel University (Research, Technology Transfer and Early Career Researchers) and Vice president of the European Federation of the Science and Technology of Lipids. She obtained her PhD at the University of Hannover and has had some international experience abroad at the University of California (Davis). Her main areas of expertise are Lipid- and protein oxidation in food processing and Secondary plant compounds and by-products in food and nutrition. She joined the ETP 'Food for Life' in 2019.

Deirdre Smyth

Vincenzo Flogliano

John Ingram

Dr John Ingram is an Associate Professor and a Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford. His interests are in the conceptual framing of food systems, the interactions among the many food system actors and their varied activities, and the outcomes of their activities for food security, livelihoods, enterprise and business, and environment; scenario analysis; and food system resilience. In addition to leading the Food Systems Transformation Research Group within Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, he leads the multi-university post-graduate ‘Interdisciplinary Food Systems Teaching and Learning’ (IFSTAL) and the TUKFS BeanMeals programmes and co-leads the Foresight4Food (F4F) and Food System Impact Valuation (FoodSIVI) programmes. He coordinated the Global Food Security 2016-2021 £15m programme ‘Resilience of the UK Food System’.