Gail Soutar

Head of Trade and Business Strategy at the NFU

She leads policy development across the business-critical areas shaping UK agriculture. From international trade and taxation to planning, infrastructure, skills, and innovation, Gail drives strategic efforts to help farmers become more competitive, profitable, and productive. With more than 23 years’ experience working on UK, EU, and international trade and agriculture policy Gail has a wealth of experience and contacts across government, regulators, and the supply chain to ensure NFU members’ interests are championed at every level. Born and brought up on the family croft on the North Coast of Scotland, Gail brings a passion for practical policy development and implementation. Outside of work, she’s a keen golfer, married to Alan, and proud mum to Cameron—balancing strategic thinking with family life and fairways.

Clara Tucker

Consumer Insight Director at Worldpanel by Numerator

Clara works with a varied portfolio of Produce suppliers, showing them where they can unlock opportunities through a deep understanding of their categories and shoppers. She’s passionate about helping clients grow through data-driven decision making. Previously at Worldpanel she worked on our biggest FMCG manufacturer account across multiple brands and categories, so she also knows the value of bringing wider industry trends to our clients to contextualise changes in their market. Coupled with previous experience in Customer Experience strategy, she is enthusiastic about bringing shopper insight to the forefront of supplier strategy.

Jack & Grace Communications

Nyree Ambarchian

Co-Founder of Jack & Grace, a purpose-driven communications agency on a mission to use comms as a force for good. She provides strategic support for the British Toms team, ensuring our message lands in front of the right people.

 Yasmin Thompson

Yasmin is a PR and Content Lead at Jack & Grace. She worked closely on this year’s British Tomato Fortnight campaign, delivering content, influencer partnerships and more to spread the campaign’s message and champion British Toms

Rob James is Technical Director for Thanet Earth, supplying most of the UK’s major multiple retailers. He is also a member of the NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board.

He has worked at Thanet Earth since the earliest days of the project in 2008 as part of the leadership team on site. He has helped develop a cutting edge, fully functioning greenhouse complex.

Rob is responsible for all aspects of product quality, sustainability, research projects, innovation, varietal development, environment and food safety.

Dr Sven Batke

Chair of the Greenhouse Innovation Consortium (GIC), Reader in Plant Science, and Associate Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange at Edge Hill University

He is an expert in sustainable horticulture and protected cropping, with extensive experience in plant physiology, climate and crop data analysis. He has led multiple commercial greenhouse trials, including collaborative greenhouse glass testing with Pilkington. As facilitator of the InnovateUK ADOPT programme, he works closely with key industry partners to deliver applied innovation.

Together with the BTGA, he recently completed the first national mapping of UK greenhouses and developed a spatial model to identify optimal locations for future infrastructure and estimate the investment required for national food self-sufficiency. He recently published a white paper on the state of UK protected edibles and has contributed to over £18 million in research funding applications, with his work informing grower practices and national food policy.

Lauren Chappell

Assistant Professor at Warwick Crop Centre, University of Warwick.

She works on the Vegetable Genetic Improvement Network (VeGIN) project, a Defra funded research programme that brings together research focussed on key vegetable crops including brassicas, leafy salads, root vegetables, and herbs. The project encourages collaboration between industry and researchers to address how genetic improvement of crop varieties can contribute to a sustainable increase in food production, meeting the challenges of food security and climate change. Her main interest is in identifying and deploying new sources of resistance to key pests and diseases in a range of horticultural crops utilising novel pre-breeding and GE techniques.

Dr Adrian Fox BSc (Hons) PhD CBiol SPHP MRSB

Lead Plant Virologist, Fera Science Ltd

Adrian leads the Plant Virology team at Fera Science Ltd, the National Reference Laboratory for Plant Health in England and Wales, UK. He has over 25 years’ experience in regulatory plant virus diagnostics. In addition to delivering regulatory and commercial virus diagnostics, the research of the group includes applying novel diagnostic techniques to improve the detection and diagnosis of plant viruses, and investigating the epidemiology and management of novel and emerging viruses of field vegetables and protected edibles.  He is a member of the International Committee on Plant Virus Epidemiology and the EPPO panel on diagnostics in virology.

Adrian has been involved in the response to tomato brown rugose fruit virus since 2018.  His research group have provided grower focused research to help manage the virus and to inform plant health action in response to outbreaks of the disease.  

Find the full details of the event here!