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Hari Ghotra, Hari Ghotra, Food and Beverage Development (Global Lead), Virgin Atlantic

"I think I'd like to see them encouraging women or girls a lot more into the industry. One of my little bugbears is that there seems to be lots of women coming in, but not a lot of women stay in, they sort of filter out and start doing different things. And a lot of that is because it's just not geared up for them. The restaurant world certainly isn't geared up for women and it's a bit of a shame because they're losing such creativity and they're losing such amazing people who want to be in that world."

2 of 9

Jessica Pinnick, Brand Manager, Belvoir Farm

"What I would love to see is the industry supporting more young people through things like apprenticeships. I actually started my career in marketing or in a commercial area of the business through an apprenticeship when I used to work at Boots. And I think there's a lot of apprenticeships out there. A lot of graduate schemes you hear a lot about, and I know they're extremely competitive, but a lot of those are reliant on people already having that university education or of making that decision as to which career path they wanted to take. And I think a lot of people don't know that at that age. It is quite tricky to know where you want to go or to commit to doing a degree and taking on an element of debt. So I'd absolutely love for the industry to encourage more people through apprenticeships to get work experience."

3 of 9

Dominique Woolf, cookbook writer and entrepreneur

"I think mentoring would be a really great thing to see more of. I was lucky to have won a competition actually to win a few months of mentoring with the co founder of nice drinks. And that, you know, just to have someone experience, go through information and for them to tell you their side of things. And to give you some advice, and a steer is amazing. And it's something I need more of, as well. So definitely having mentoring opportunities."

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Taïeb Mestiri, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Manager, the Coca-Cola Company

"So there are two different things. The first one is offering more opportunities to young people, I think this is very, very important. Young people need to have the opportunity to join a big company, and big companies have to offer them the opportunity to join. The second thing is to connect with startups that are becoming really innovative. Connecting with those startups, helps in both ways. It helps the startups and then of course, the startups in the end help the company grow. Because the aim of a startup would be really to look at problems, or issues that a food or beverage company or another tech company would have to solve. And they would have ideas to solve the problem."

5 of 9

Liz Littlewood, Lead Technical Manager for Ambient Foods, Non-Food, Beers, Wines and Spirits, Co-op

“Informing customers more about what we do within the food industry. We work really, really hard and often we get bad press. I also think the industry should promote careers more. There are lots of reasons why it’s a great career.”

6 of 9

Micah Douglas, Content and Community Manager, Tony’s Chocolonely

“I definitely want to see more social impact. To deliver more impactful things to the world. To see the industry being less about just the product and maximising profits, and being more about delivering something really meaningful back to the world.”

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Ben Christopherson, Course Leader and former Pastry Chef, University of West London

“I think it'd be really nice to see them promoting the careers of young chefs. So we always hear all about the executive chef or the head chef, but what about the kind of stuff you never hear about, like the junior chefs? You don't hear about them. It'd be really great if we heard more about them and their story and where they came from and where they're going and how they progress. That'd be really good.”

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Marie Wright, President, Creation, Design & Development and Chief Global Flavourist, ADM

"So I think we have to find a way in the food industry, and in particular the flavour industry, to get our message across about all the great things that we are doing. That we're listening to consumers, and we're responding to consumers, and being part of education, there's so much misinformation out there, that it's almost shocking. And I think it's important that we participate in those conversations and that we promote the industry more because we want great people to come into the industry. And food is fundamental to life and there's so much opportunity. So I think, as an industry or union, we are doing better than we did. But as an industry, I think doing that would be a big plus in attracting more talent, and getting more of a positive spin as to the great works of many, many companies."

9 of 9

April Dear, Senior Product and Packaging Development Manager, Asda

"I'd like to see them doing more advertising of their roles that are available, and make the transition for young people into the industry really clear. And what we can get from young people is so great in terms of their ideas. Then we need to see how we can take those ideas to become more adaptable and agile to what young people want and the ways of working. So I'd like to see us working together more on what that future looks like."