Who we are

We are a registered charity working in partnership with researchers, campaigners, community bodies, industry, Government and citizens to galvanise the UK’s diverse agents of change.

What’s the future for every 100 children born in 2021 if nothing changes?

About our work

Our vision

is a sustainable food system which delivers health and wellbeing for all.

Our values

Collaborative, creative and innovative, trustworthy and credible, bold and impactful.

Our mission

is changing food policy and business practice to ensure everyone, across the UK nations, can afford and access a healthy and sustainable diet.

We are policy entrepreneurs and use surprising and inventive ideas to catalyse and deliver fundamental change in the food system by building and synthesising strong evidence, shaping powerful coalitions, harnessing citizens’ voices and driving progress with impactful communications. We continually identify new opportunities for action, and trial new levers for change.

About our work

Staff

Anna Taylor

Executive Director

Anna joined The Food Foundation as its first Executive Director at the beginning of June 2015 after 5 years at the Department for International Development. At DFID Anna led the policy team on nutrition and supported the delivery of the UK’s global commitments to tackle undernutrition.

Before joining DFID Anna worked for a number of international organisations including Save the Children and UNICEF and has been at the forefront of international leadership on nutrition for several years, supporting programmes in a wide range of contexts in Africa and South Asia. Anna has also worked for the UK Department of Health. In 2014 she was awarded an OBE for her work to address the global burden of undernutrition. She did a MSc in Human Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1994. In May 2017 Anna became a member of the London Food Board to advise the Mayor of London and the GLA on the food matters that affect Londoners. She is a Board member for Veg Power and an advisor to the International Food Policy Research Institute. She served as Chief Independent Adviser to Henry Dimbleby for the development of the National Food Strategy published in 2021.

Jo Ralling

Head of Communications

Jo joined The Food Foundation as Head of Communications in April 2018. Jo is passionate Media & Campaigns Executive specialising consumer health and public advocacy campaigns with over 20 years’ experience working across all areas of Broadcast, Digital and Print Media.

In the past 11 years Jo has held leadership positions in the Jamie Oliver Group driving growth for the media group, overseeing all television production and distribution of over 300 hours of programming, creating the global digital strategy and setting up the hugely successful Multi Channel Network Food and Drinks Tube. She launched the SUGAR SMART campaign for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and played a pivotal role in delivering the UK and global advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of sugar to long term public health and lobbying the Government to urgently introduce a Childhood Obesity Strategy and Sugar Tax.

In October 2017 Jo launched RISING TIDE FILMS, an Independent Production Company based in Brighton and set up the Brighton Production Hub to connect production talent and broadcasters across the city.

Roz Salik

Events Manager

Roz joined as The Food Foundation’s Events Manager from the Sustainable Restaurant Association. She is an experienced events and campaigns project manager specialising in public and stakeholder engagement and awareness-raising events across the not for profit, public and corporate sector.

Roz has held event management positions at Plan International UK, The Centre for Social Justice, Crisis, JTI and London 2012. Prior to this, Roz was the first Marketing Manager at the GLA from 2001-2009 overseeing public campaigns and events at City Hall for the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

Roz grew up in her parents’ Polish/Italian delicatessen and has had a lifelong passion for food, food education and food related community activities in her south London neighbourhood.

Isabel Hughes

Policy Engagement Manager

Isabel joined The Food Foundation as Policy Engagement Manager in April 2020 from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where she worked on domestic and EU policy development. For the past 6 years she has worked in a variety of roles across Government, spanning EU policy implementation at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, auditing the value for money of Cabinet Office programmes, and coordination of Defra’s no deal planning at the Department for Exiting the EU. She has also previously project managed large-scale digital campaigns at AgeUK.

Isabel is interested in the links between different parts of the food system, and the possibilities for really ambitious, joined-up policy thinking to address poor environmental, social, health and economic outcomes. Over the past 2 years she has completed a part-time MSc in Food Policy from City University, using her final thesis to analyse and critique the influencing strategies adopted by NGOs working on palm oil consumption in India. She is a professionally trained cook, and has recently discovered the joys of growing her own fruit and veg!

Rebecca Tobi

Senior business and investor engagement manager

Rebecca joined the Food Foundation in January 2020, leading on the Peas Please initiative. These days she manages our business and investor engagement team, with oversight of our work engaging food businesses, investors and policy-makers with the need to transition the UK towards a more sustainable and healthy food system. This includes our Peas Please and Plating Up Progress projects.

Rebecca is a Registered Nutritionist (RNutr) with a background in science communication, joining the Food Foundation from the Nutrition Society. In a previous life, Rebecca worked in the marketing and tech sectors before deciding to move into nutrition, obtaining a MSc in Nutrition for Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Medicine.

Rebecca is a lover of veg (peas really are her favourite vegetable), a staunch advocate for evidence-based nutrition communication, and is passionate about structural changes that make healthy and sustainable diets accessible for all.

Zoe McIntyre

Campaign Manager – Children's Right2Food

Zoe joined the Food Foundation in April 2020 as Project Manager of the Children’s Right2Food Campaign. She was previously employed at the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) where she worked in the agri-food strategic communications team. Before Defra, Zoe worked for the Italy-based NGO Food for Soul focussing on raising awareness about food waste and food poverty through creating a network of community kitchens in cities around the world. Zoe helped to launch their London project, Refettorio Felix, where she saw first-hand the diet-related health disparities and food security challenges experienced by vulnerable London communities. Zoe also completed an MSc in Food Culture and Communications at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, writing her final thesis on the health-enhancing role of community gardens.

Chloe Mackean

Project Manager – Global Food Systems

Chloe joined the team in August 2020 as Global Food Systems Project Manager, leading on The Food Foundations’ international work and in particularly bringing together young people, city authorities and the private sector to develop cross-cutting, innovative solutions for food systems transformation.

Before joining The Food Foundation she worked for the National Trust, where she set up a knowledge sharing network for climate change professionals. “Fit for the Future network” worked with around 100 organisations from third, public and private sector and was all about collaboration and sharing practical solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

She also spent a year managing an organic farm and community centre in Worcestershire and a further 2 years were spent working on a range of sustainability and community projects in East and Central Africa, and India.

Shona Goudie

Policy Research Manager

Shona joined The Food Foundation as a Project Officer in 2019. She has completed a MSc in Human Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen specialising in clinical nutrition. She then went on to work in dietetic departments in NHS hospitals before joining The Food Foundation. She is particularly passionate about the promotion of child health and wellbeing, and minimising health and dietary inequalities.

Annie Connolly

Research Engagement Manager

Annie joined the Food Foundation’s Children’s Right2Food team in August 2021 as Research Engagement Manager. She works on the school food element of the Fix Our Food research programme of which Food Foundation is a partner, focussing on policy and stakeholder engagement.

Annie has been involved in advocating for change in our food system on different scales for many years, from growing vegetables with primary school children and volunteering in food banks to campaigning for national policy change with End Hunger UK.

She did an MSc in Food Policy and is in the final stages of her PhD at the University of Leeds on primary school children’s lived experiences of food insecurity.

Indu Gurung

Acting Peas Please Project Manager

Indu joined The Food Foundation in 2019 as part of the Rank Foundation’s Time to Shine scheme, moving into a Project Officer role in 2020. She works on the Peas Please and Plating up Progress projects. Prior to joining The Food Foundation, Indu completed a MSc in Public Health and a BSc in Human Nutrition. She is interested in reducing health inequalities, children’s health and wellbeing, and sustainable and nutritious food system/diets. Indu is also a lover of veg, having recently taken up urban gardening.

Chanade Bandaranayake

Head of Finance and Operations

Chanade joined The Food Foundation in 2022. She comes from a finance background, mainly working in the charity sector for more than 10 years, and has held varied finance and operations roles in small and large organisations. She is passionate about changing systems that do not benefit society, especially in food sector. Chanade thrives of enabling grassroot organisations have internal systems and structures that enable them to get the best out of a small dynamic teams. Her passion for social change is driven by animal welfare and people's health.

Alice English

Project officer

Alice joined the Food Foundation in January 2022. She has completed an MSc in Global Environmental Politics and Policy, focusing her research on food systems, with her final project investigating the barriers preventing the widespread adoption of Agroecology.

She has previously worked and volunteered at a range of environmental organisations, such as Greenhouse PR and the Climate Coalition, spent time working on organic farms and taken part in food systems research. She is particularly passionate about creating sustainable and fair food and farming systems.

Leticija Petrovic

City Food Policy Lead

Leticija joined The Food Foundation in January 2023 as a City Food Policy Lead. She is working directly with Birmingham City Council on deployment and implementation of its Food System Strategy with the aim of transforming the local food system. Before joining us she worked as a consultant on number of large transformation programmes across both public and third sector, focusing on service design and improving citizen experience. Leticija also has experience of creating strong social value offering for private sector consultancies who hold public services contracts. She completed MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at Newcastle University and is particularly interested in regenerative agriculture and food sovereignty. She grew up in Croatia spending summers at her grandparents’ allotments where she developed a passion for small scale organic food production.

Tilda Ferree

Citizen Engagement Project Officer - Veg Advocates

Tilda joined the Food Foundation’s Peas Please team in June 2022 as a Citizen Engagement Officer, to support the Veg Advocates to deliver local initiatives that drive up veg consumption. After graduating, her passion for food and people led her to volunteer at a local youth group, where she was cooking and creating games for teenagers. She went on to work for a range of NGOs, where she was advocating for young people facing challenges in the care, asylum and criminal justice systems. Throughout this work, Tilda became passionate about the power of people and grassroots organisations to change systems. In her free time Tilda loves to swim, chat, cook and eat.

Geoff Bew

Communications Manager

Geoff joined the Food Foundation as Communications Manager in April 2022. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the media, working as a reporter and news editor for newspapers and websites in the UK and abroad. Prior to joining us, he graduated with an MA in Journalism and is passionate about promoting a food system that is better for human health, the environment and animal welfare. He is also interested in how nutritional science can help in the battle against rising levels of obesity and diabetes.

Josh Day

Projects Administrator

Josh joined The Food Foundation in 2023 as part of the Rank Foundation’s Time to Shine scheme. He completed a BA in Film Studies before continuing to study an MA in Culture and Critical Theory. Before moving to The Food Foundation Josh worked in a variety of roles in a primary school setting, utilising his experience to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the school community. Josh is interested in the impact that food systems and environments have on people's lives and is driven by a desire to ensure people have better access to a healthy and nutritious diet.

Annette Thomas

Citizen Engagement Coordinator

Annette joined the Food Foundation in November 2022 as the Citizen Engagement Coordinator. She supports our adult Food Ambassadors to amplify their voices about food insecurity and lived experiences to bring change within the food system. Prior to joining us, Annette completed a BA (Hons) Hospitality and Licensed Retail Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work and Postgraduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (PGDip CBT). She is passionate about advocacy, mental health, equality and diversity and understanding how nutritious foods contribute towards healing.

Elena Vacca

Youth Engagement Coordinator

Elena joined The Food Foundation in December 2022 as a Youth Engagement Coordinator. She works closely with our youth ambassadors to campaign for change. Elena has worked with young people throughout her previous roles, from teaching English as a foreign language to hosting cooking sessions with young people. Her most recent role involved managing the Your Local Pantry brand in the north of England - working with communities to ensure they had access to healthy and affordable food. She has a BSc Hons in Nutritional Sciences and is passionate about food, health and working with people.

Laura Sandys CBE

Chair and Founder

Laura Sandys founded The Food Foundation in 2014 as an independent policy think tank to challenge the current food system and how it was impacting the public’s health, and the affordability of healthy food, particularly focused on lower income families – here and aboard.

Former Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency, she has been a long-standing campaigner on food issues, focused on system wide solutions and evaluating success through real public outcomes. She is an active contributor to public policy in climate change, energy policy and resource management accelerating action towards a net zero economy.

Previously she was an MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Energy & Climate Change Minister. Described by The Times as “one of the sanest of all MPs” and by Conservative Home as “lateral-minded, original and free-thinking”, she has brought her political and business experience to calls for innovation in food systems policy.

Baroness Rosie Boycott

Baroness Rosie Boycott is a member of the House of Lords and has had a long and distinguished career as a journalist, publisher and author, including having been the editor of several national newspapers in the UK.

In 2008 she was appointed as Chair of the London Food Board to advise the Mayor of London on sustainable food policy implementation in the capital. In October 2016, the new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, asked Rosie to lead the development of a new London Food Strategy to help the food system to work better to meet the needs of everyone who lives and works in London.

In 2018 Rosie became a member of the House of Lords after leaving the London Food Board and she continues to write regularly and speak all over the world about the role of cities, and the importance of food in combating hunger and food insecurity, improving health, tackling childhood obesity and helping to reduce carbon emissions contributing to climate change.

Prof Sir Michael Marmot

Sir Michael Marmot has been Professor of Epidemiology at University College London since 1985. Professor Marmot is the Advisor to the WHO Director-General, on social determinants of health, in the new WHO Division of Healthier Populations; Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong (2019-); and Co-Director of the of the CUHK Institute of Health Equity. He is the recipient of the WHO Global Hero Award; the Harvard Lown Professorship (2014-2017); the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2015); and 19 honorary doctorates. Marmot has led research groups on health inequalities for nearly 50 years.

He was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen, for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities. Professor Marmot is a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Prof Sir Charles Godfray

Charles is a population biologist with broad interests in science and the interplay of science and policy. He has spent his career at Oxford University and Imperial College and is currently Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Population Biology at Oxford. His research has involved experimental and theoretical studies in population and community ecology, epidemiology and evolutionary biology. He is particularly interested in food security and leads the Future of Food Programme at Oxford. He chaired the Lead Expert Group of the UK Government Office of Science’s Foresight project on the Future of Food and Farming, and was until 2021 chair of Defra’s (the UK’s farming and environment ministry) Science Advisory Council.

David Edwards

David Edwards is the Assistant Director of The Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit. David oversees the ISU’s natural capital risks team and heads the Unit’s work on food security. This work seeks to use HRH’s neutral convening power to help build consensus on the need for transformations in food systems and to accelerate international action on this agenda. David’s work focuses on illuminating the economic arguments for transformations in food systems and centres on the developing consensus around policy changes that can help level the playing field for the evolution of healthier, more sustainable food-systems.

David’s work with the ISU is currently focused on accelerating ICT innovation to support sustainable smallholder agriculture, and on developing a collaboration among international organisations, city leaders and the private sector to help mainstream healthier city regional food systems. Prior to his current role David was Project Manager of the Princes’ Rainforest Project (PRP) and worked previously both as a development consultant in Africa and as a market research executive with TNS-Global, where he advised a number of major food and drinks companies working in the UK. David has a BA in History and an MSc in International Development.

Essie North

Essie is the CEO of Big Change – a charity acting as a catalyst for system change in how we support the next generation. Essie leads Big Change’s work backing pioneering people and projects who are rethinking how we can set up all young people in the UK to thrive in life, not just in exams. It takes a collective approach, activating a network of global and national partners to make change around its “10 hopes for change” a reality, and looking at the intersections between education, health, wellbeing and the future of work.

Essie’s focus has been on change and transformation in different iterations throughout her career. Building on her background in psychology as the field shifted from fixing problems to understanding human thriving, she spent 10 years advising a network of 500 leading global businesses on best practice in leadership and approaches to drive change in how they engage their employees and create positive impact with the communities and societies they operate in.  Essie is a qualified business coach and a big believer in supporting the people in all parts of the system to make change a reality.

Dr Mehroosh Tak

Dr. Mehroosh Tak is a lecturer at Royal Veterinary College. She is an applied economist researching how to make food systems sustainable and nutritious. Mehroosh has a background in international development as a monitoring and evaluation expert. She is passionate about making economics language accessible to the public and diversifying the discipline. She sits on the Board of Trustees for two UK charities: Economy and Rethinking Economics.

Andrew Hobbs

Andrew leads EY’s EMEIA Public Policy team which works with key stakeholders to strengthen the working relationship between the public and private sectors in policy and regulatory matters on topics such as corporate governance, including reporting and audit, technology and sustainability.

Andrew is a member of the Disclosure and Transparency Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network, the Asia Corporate Governance Association India Working Group and the Corporate Governance Committee of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee at the OECD. He chairs the Corporate Governance Working Group of the European Contact Group whose members comprise the six largest accounting networks across the EU.  He regularly blogs about the role of corporate governance in trust.

He is an experienced charity trustee having spent 8 years on the Board of Bliss where he chaired their Risk & Evaluation Committee for 3 years.  He also co-developed the FT course “So you want to be a charity trustee?”

He is a father of four and in his spare time likes cycling, cooking and making homebrew.

Tom Lindsay

Tom is a Chartered Accountant and graduate of Manchester University. He has over 20 years investment banking experience having worked for Flemings and Lehman Brothers, both in the UK and USA. Tom has covered the Consumer sector for most of his career. He founded Spayne Lindsay & Co, with John Spayne, in 2000. The independent advisory firm focuses exclusively on the Consumer sector, including Food & Beverage, Retail, Restaurants, Household & Personal Care and other Consumer-related markets. Tom is also currently a board member of Eminate, which commercialises university-inspired research and innovation.

Pat Biggers

Pat Biggers is a Portfolio Manager and Director at Lazard Asset Management in London. She is a Trustee of Morgan Stanley’s Global Impact Funding Trust and Secretary and Board member of the Trust’s Cures Fund. Pat also serves on the Advisory Board of the Mayor’s Fund for London. Previously she was an adviser for the Mayor’s Fund’s “Kitchen Social” project addressing children’s holiday hunger, and also has been an active volunteer for several food rescue/redistribution projects.

Prof Tim Lobstein

Chair

Tim Lobstein is Senior Policy Advisor to the World Obesity Federation based in London, UK, and is an Honorary Professor at the Boden Obesity Collaboration, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. He was previously a Visiting Fellow at the Rudd Food Policy Center, Yale University, and a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, and for many years was a director of the UK Food Commission and editor of its journal, The Food Magazine.

Tim has been the lead author of papers on children’s health in several journals including Obesity Reviews and Lancet and a member of the Lancet Commission on Obesity, contributing to its report on The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition and Climate Change. Tim has written several chapters for standard textbooks on obesity in childhood and obesity prevention, and has undertaken consultancies for the European Commission, the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

Prof Martin White

Martin White is programme leader in the Centre for Diet & Activity Research (CEDAR), MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, where he leads research on understanding and changing food systems to improve population health. He has particular interests in food environments that shape what we eat, as well as the causes and consequences of, and interventions to reduce, social inequalities in health.
Martin is also Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Research Programme, and a visiting professor in the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University, where until 2014 he was Director of Fuse, UKCRC Centre for Translational Research in Public Health.
Martin graduated in Medicine from Birmingham University, from which he also gained an MD, and has an MSc in public health from Newcastle University. He is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health, past President of the UK Society for Social Medicine, and President- of the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine.

Emma Coles

Emma is a co-founder and partner of Food Smart Advisors, a boutique consultancy working on solutions for a healthier world. In addition, Emma is working with Voeding Leeft, a Dutch NGO that develops innovative food programs including a program to use lifestyle changes to reverse type 2 diabetes.

Previously Emma was head of Sustainable Retailing at Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket in the Netherlands and part of the Ahold Delhaize group. Emma was responsible for health and sustainability, with an interest in the link between diet and health and the opportunities for the food retail industry to support consumer health. While at Ahold Emma was Co-Chair of the Consumer Goods Forum Health and Wellness pillar.

Before joining Ahold Emma was Director of the Health Insurance Fund, a foundation supporting low-cost health insurance delivered through the private sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

Three years running Emma has been included in the Dutch Food100 list: 100 people changing the food system in the Netherlands. Emma is a member of the Tuft’s Nutrition Council.

Dr Rachel Loopstra

Rachel Loopstra is a Lecturer in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London. She is a quantitative researcher, and her research explores the impact of social policies on nutrition, household food insecurity and health. Recent projects include a nationwide survey of people using food banks in The Trussell Trust Foodbank Network, conducted in collaboration with The Trussell Trust. She is currently working on an ESRC-funded project exploring the rise of food bank use and food insecurity over the period of economic recession and austerity in the UK. She completed her PhD in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto.

Katie Gordon

Katie is an independent director and adviser. She has spent most of her career in Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) and corporate marketing. She was Head of SRI at Cazenove Capital Management for 12 years, where she initiated and led the SRI offering. This was followed by 5 years as Director of Responsible Investment and Stewardship at CCLA. Katie spent 5 years in strategic brand management and was a founding director of Swordfish Integrated Marketing. Previous Board positions include 7 years as trustee of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and Board Director of UK Sustainable Investment Forum (UKSIF). Katie is currently a Non Executive Director (NED) of Thrive Renewables, including being a member of both the Nominations and Remuneration Committees; she is an independent member of the Access Endowment Investment Committee; is a member of the Advisory Board of LEAP – Livestock, Environment and People; and on the Expert Advisory Group for Snowball IM.

Our Governance

We are a charity. Our charitable objects can be found here.

Our trustees have two committees. Their terms of reference can be found here:

Audit and Risk Committee

Impact and Reputation Committee

Our Funders

We are extremely grateful to our funders for all their support. We only accept funding which does not compromise our independence. The Food Foundation reviews all financial engagements – assessing whether potential donations are acceptable and in line with the Foundation’s aims.

From January 2016, The Food Foundation adopted the Financial Relationship Policy developed by World Obesity Federation. The Food Foundation adapted the strategy so that its language was consistent with the Foundation’s internal structure. The financial thresholds for low, medium and high risk engagements were also lowered, in recognition of the size and operating budget of The Food Foundation. The Food Foundation’s assessment protocol can be found here. The Food Foundation’s financial engagement strategy will be reviewed on a regular basis.

The Food Foundation's reserves policy can be found here.