Coinneach MacLeod (The Hebridean Baker)

Coinneach MacLeod, famously known as The Hebridean Baker, will be our headline speaker at The Excellence Summit. Hailing from the stunning Isle of Lewis, Coinneach is Scotland’s best-selling cookbook author, has been honoured as Scotland’s Food & Drink Influencer of the Year, and regularly appears on ITV’s This Morning. Adding to his accolades, he will soon begin filming for his very own BBC show, set to premiere in 2025.

James Walton, IGD

James' role at IGD is to help businesses anticipate and cope with strategic events, including economic pressures, geo-political change, social developments and environmental stress. James has worked with clients across the entire grocery industry as well as with non-industry groups such as government departments, financial businesses, and NGOs. James joined IGD in April 1999 and has served in several roles, becoming Chief Economist in 2004. Prior to joining IGD, he worked for Hillsdown Holdings, Northern Foods and Rank-Xerox.

Neil Freckingham, Opportunity North East

Neil joined Opportunity North East in 2019 as the Food Hub Director accountable for delivering the £27M Aberdeen City Region Deal investment in Seedpod tasked with accelerating growth and innovation in the food & drink industry.

A graduate of Edinburgh University and RGU, Neil has worked in the food and drink industry for 30 years with roles in Spillers, Coca Cola Enterprises, Chivas Brothers and most recently as Operations Director for Macphie Ltd.

Claire Small, Elior UK

Claire is Director of Innovation at Elior UK, one of the UK’s leading contract caterers across the Stadia, Concessions, Education, Healthcare and B&I sectors, where she is responsible for ensuring Elior maintain a market-leading offering, both in Scotland and the rest of the UK through setting Elior’s food strategy, creating a culture of innovation, and ensuring Elior meet their ambitious CSR targets. She previously held the role of Director of Innovation, leading menu development, NPD and concept innovation. Prior to this, Claire held the Head of Commercial role at SSP UK, and previously held marketing roles within the hospitality industry at ETM Group and The Restaurant Group.

Anne-Laure Farrar, The Knowledge Bank

Anne-Laure Farrar is the UK market Insight Manager at The Knowledge Bank. Anne-Laure is passionate about sustainability, storytelling, and – despite being raised in France – all things Scottish and Scottish Provenance. She joined The Knowledge Bank in 2022 to help retailers and foodservice providers throughout the UK understand the benefits and opportunities around using Scottish suppliers. She also supports Scottish producers identify these opportunities. She has background in category management and data analysis from big companies like Diageo and smaller challenger brands like Ecover.

Julia Bryce, Food & Drink Journalist and Content Creator 

Julia Bryce is an award-winning food editor and content creator. She has covered Scottish food and drink for more than a decade and recently appeared on the global Netflix show Somebody Feed Phil in season 7's Scotland episode. 

She is passionate about supporting local food, drink, hospitality and tourism and acted as the regional food group leader for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in her last post with Aberdeenshire Council and Opportunity North East. 

Julia spends the majority of her free time further promoting food and drink her social media channels and was named Scottish Food and Drink Influencer of the Year 2024 at The Scotsman Scran Awards as a result.

She now has her own business offering her writing, social media, events and digital marketing skills to businesses across the country.

You can connect with her via @juliabryce92 on all social media platforms.

Scott Fraser, thefoodpeople

After studying Zoology at Aberdeen, Scott started his professional food journey, in a small restaurant in Sydney. He was immediately fascinated by the science, art and biology of cooking.

He came back to his native Edinburgh and dove into professional cookery and was lucky enough to cook all over the world at restaurants like the Three Chimneys in Skye and Vue De Monde in Melbourne.

After restaurants, Scott went into product development for a fish company, designing products for M&S. During this time, he went back to university to study an MSc in Gastronomy at Queen Margaret University.

Roll on 20(ish) years and since his first day at the stove and Scott’s fascination for food still as strong as it ever was. Now with thefoodpeople, it is his words rather than his knives that do the talking.

Iain Clunie, Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Net Zero Commitment

Iain Clunie is the Programme Director for the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership’s Net Zero Commitment, hosted by Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Scotland. Through the programme, his aim is to ensure every Scottish food and drink business has an understanding of what Net Zero means for them, and are aware of the fundamental steps they need to take to achieve it by the 2045 target.

With more than 35 years experience, Iain’s prior role was the manager of Food Systems and Bioeconomy for Zero Waste Scotland, leading a team to reduce food waste throughout the supply chain. At the Net Zero Commitment, Iain’s role includes being a key interface between policy makers, politicians, regulators, and stakeholders, advocating for a sustainable food and drink industry in Scotland and beyond.

Helen Wallace, Scotland Food & Drink

Helen Wallace joined Scotland Food & Drink in 2020 as the UK Market Development Manager. With over 25 years of experience in the food and drink industry, including 12 years with Waitrose, Helen leverages her extensive expertise to work closely with key buying organizations. Her focus is on building and maintaining strong, sustainable, and mutually beneficial relationships that drive the sales growth of Scottish food and drink across the UK.

In 2024, she has collaborated with Iain Clunie from the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Net Zero project, leading efforts to engage with Net Zero and Environmental Sustainability leads at major retailers and key food service operators with the aim of gaining a clear understanding of their expectations from suppliers. 

Helen's goal for this work is to help motivate Scottish producers to embark on work towards achieving Net Zero by making it feel less daunting and encouraging them to take proactive action in order to capitalize on the potential commercial benefits which she believes will be significant should Scottish producers collectively get behind this.

Chris Keenan, Scottish Enterprise

Chris Keenan is an International Trade Specialist at Scottish Enterprise with over 25 years of global business experience that he uses to drive Scotland’s food and drink exports. With a strong background in both private and public sectors, Chris offers practical advice and commercial insights to help companies navigate international markets. Through coordination with Scottish Enterprise’s overseas-based colleagues, he provides tailored support, identifies export opportunities and helps companies overcome market entry challenges. By fostering collaboration with

Scotland’s food and drink industry bodies, Chris ensures that Scottish businesses are well-equipped to compete and grow on an international stage.

Tess Hansson, Highland Spring

David Wilkinson, GlobalScot

International food and drink- Del Monte- Bacardi rum- Finlandia Vodka, in key international sales and marketing roles- working based in market USA/Europe. As CEO, started Finlandia Vodka in the UK -then based in Helsinki Finland leading global growth. Came to Scotland 20 years ago to help refinance a significant stationery company- Charles Letts.

Focused on strategy, profitable international growth through focused sales and marketing – works across Scotland and internationally, across all sectors- Food and Drink companies his first love! A GlobalScot with a wide global network, specific interests in the Nordic – region- specialist Finland thanks to his Finnish wife their second home.

Marcus Pickering, Summerhall Distillery

Marcus started his career in the Highlands of Scotland as a senior Butler at Skibo Castle. This is where his interest in the spirits world first started. An understanding of every whisky that the castle provided to its guests was crucial. Marcus regularly took guests for tours of the Glenmorangie Distillery which is within five miles of the Castle.

Moving to Edinburgh, Marcus started on a rather different career path which led to him Co-Founding Summerhall Distillery with his business partner Matthew Gammell producing, Whisky, Gin, Rum and Vodka and exporting worldwide, their story continues 16 years on and counting…

Alan Mahon, Brewgooder

Alan Mahon is the Founder and CEO of Brewgooder, an impact beer brand and B Corp which is one of the UK's fastest growing beer brands.

Since 2016 Brewgooder has invested almost £250k in dozens of community projects at home and internationally through it's non-profit, the Brewgooder Foundation. Brewgooder has been recognised as a B Corp "Best for the World" company for community three years in a row.

Alan started his career fighting homelessness in Scotland with Social Bite in 2013, designing and executing campaigns that raised over £10m, before starting Brewgooder after his own illness from unsafe water. In 2019 Alan was recognised by the Big Issue Top 100 Changemakers.

Alan Baxter, Rowan Glen

With over 20 years of experience in the dairy industry, including 16 years at Rowan Glen, Alan progressed from Production Manager to Factory Manager and now serves as Shareholder and Managing Director of Rowan Glen Limited. His previous roles at Graham’s the Family Dairy, Milk Link (now Arla), and Nestle have equipped him with extensive knowledge of all operational and technical aspects of dairy, from Trainee Lab Assistant to Managing Director. Alan has a deep understanding of the dairy sector in Scotland, Great Britain, and Ireland, and is technically qualified in compliance, health and safety (IOSH trained), environmental compliance (Degree in Environmental Health), and food safety and quality (HACCP Level 4).

Alan led the buyout of the Rowan Glen factory and brand, forming a new company and team from the ground up. This involved establishing suppliers, securing customers, and managing all aspects of the business with a hands-on approach, including finance functions such as accounts payable, payroll, pensions, monthly P&L, and bank reconciliation.

Michiel Smith

Michiel is an experienced Non-Executive Director and informal investor. He is the gatekeeper of Apollo Informal Investments and a non-executive director for several start-ups.

He was born in the Netherlands. After finishing a master's in Finance and becoming a certified financial analyst (CFA/VBA). he worked as an Equity Analyst covering the (food) retail, leisure, and transport sectors. He also set up the Socially Responsible Investment methodology within the Rabo Bank Group for their retail customers. 

Rosemary Gallagher, The Scotsman

Rosemary Gallagher is Head of Commercial Content at The Scotsman, managing a range of campaigns across print and digital. She has worked in journalism and communications for more than 20 years, in a variety of consultancy, in-house roles and freelance roles. She has written extensively about food and drink and was also Head of Communications at the Scotch Whisky Association. She was previously Business News Editor at Scotland on Sunday and Personal Finance Editor at The Scotsman, as well as having been a reporter and editor on business trade magazines in London.

Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne FRSE

Lucinda graduated with a Physiology degree and has spent her career working with food. After training at Leiths School of Food and Wine and Bibendum Restaurant, she ran a successful catering company before returning to Leiths to teach and co-write the award winning Leiths Techniques Bible, focusing on the functionality of ingredients and cooking techniques.

After her sons were diagnosed with a dairy allergy and gluten intolerance, she published How to Cook for Food Allergies, on the substitution of mainstream ingredients in allergy-free home cooking. This led to Lucinda founding Genius Foods, with the launch of the first soft, fresh gluten free bread across the UK in 2009. Lucinda stepped down from Genius in 2021 to focus on her role as Chair of Scotland Food & Drink and to support other pioneering Founders in food, health and climate tech.  

As a Former Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at Edinburgh University, Lucinda continues to support the School of Physics and The Royal Society, stimulating industry and academic collaboration. She is also an NED of The Scale Up Institute, Interface, Libereat and Ava Innes.

In 2012 Lucinda won EY Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017 and named as one of the Maserati Top 100 Innovators in 2018.