Women In The Food Industry - WiFi Women In The Food Industry

Dawn Davies is Head Buyer at The Whisky Exchange. Women in The Food Industry co-founder Mecca Ibrahim caught up with Dawn to discover how she made the move from wine to whisky, and with over two decades of working in the drinks industry behind her, we learnt what she thinks of the trend towards low / no alcohol drinks. Also find out what motivates Dawn and her thoughts on gender difference in drinks!

Tony’s Chocolonely is a brand which aims to bring about slave free chocolate.  Women in The Food Industry co-founder Mecca Ibrahim caught up with Nicola Matthews, their Marketing manager in the UK and Ireland to find out more about Tony’s work, what they are doing to make their slave-free chocolate mission global and how they balance that serious mission with their bright, bold and somewhat crazy products. 

One person who is working constantly with start ups on innovation in the food and foodtech industry is Lesley Stonier, Chief Marketing Officer of Forward Fooding. The organisation works to help create partnerships between established food organizations and startups to create a brighter future of food. Our co-founder Mecca Ibrahim caught up with Lesley to find out more about her work, the Food Tech 500 and what we can learn from big food brands. Find out more here. 

We had a chance to catch up with Head Chef, Ruth Hansom, of Pomona's on Hereford Road in Notting Hill who  joined the line up of chefs who competed in the Bocuse d’Or National Selection on 30th September at The Restaurant Show. The Bocuse d’Or,  is the world’s largest and most prestigious cooking contest and Ruth was the only female chef to make the finals to represent the UK. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, spoke to Ruth about the competition behind the scenes at London's busy Olympia Exhibition Hall.

We turn to the growing demand for cannabis infused drinks and the world of CBD – the non-psychoactive component of the cannabis plant.  We met Gemma Colao Managing Director & Co-Founder of OTO CBD, a wellness company whose mission is to help people discover the power of CBD through thoughtful and effective products which can easily fit into their daily lives. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Gemma about the regulations of marketing a product associated with cannabis, what the health benefits are and whether the market is really growing in the UK.

In the fifth of our Female Food Founders Interviews we were delighted to interview Renée Elliott who had a mission to push organic and natural food out of the niche it was in back in 1995. Planet Organic is now the UK’s largest fully certified organic supermarket and sells over 8,000 product lines in eight stores within the M25.  Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Renée  about changes in the organic market since the mid nineties, her inspirations and that tricky definition of sustainability