Brian Kocher is Chiquita Brands International's president for Europe & the Middle East. He is responsible throughout the region for leading the company's operations, including bananas, other produce and diversified value-added products. After joining Chiquita in 2005, Brian was president of North American operations from October 2007, leading the successful transformation of the company's North American banana and salad businesses. He previously served as vice-president, controller and chief accounting officer and has more than 18 years of accounting, sales, finance and process-change expertise. Before Chiquita, he worked at General Electric and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Cindy van Rijswick works as an industry analyst for fruits, vegetables and floriculture at Rabobank International, the largest all-finance concern in the Netherlands and, internationally, the leading food & agricultural bank. Cindy is part of the group's global Food & Agribusiness Research team that includes some 80 analysts worldwide, covering all major food and agricultural sectors from the farm to the consumer. Cindy has published various reports, including two on the prepared fruit and vegetable industry, has presented at several congresses and is instrumental in providing relevant analyses and views for Rabobank with regards to the fresh produce sector.

Michel Bicheron has been general manager of Europe for the development of the Green Giant Fresh brand (property of General Mills) in European supermarkets, since the beginning of 2010. He does this through an ambitious trademark-licensing programme involving European producers of vegetables and fruits. This new activity is being developed through the privately held B.I.C. ('Bicheron International Consulting' SARL), under a management agreement with a California-based company that owns the exclusive rights to the Green Giant Fresh trademark.

Kip Winter-Cox began her career in the retail industry and gained experience of many areas, from store management to buying and national accounts, before joining Geest (now Bakkavör) in 1998. Since that time, whilst developing her understanding of a wide range of product categories, she has specialised in produce and the produce consumer, and is now a recognised expert in this field. Kip has spoken at many international events including United Fresh Congress, MacFrut and at academic conferences across Europe.

Ian Finlayson is operations director of Footprints4Food (F4F), which provides cost-efficient carbon and water footprinting of fresh produce with the aim to reduce its environmental impact.

He is also managing director of Practical Solutions International, which specialises in helping growers understand how best to work with retailers in Europe.

Ian is chair of the FLO Standards Committee, where he has enjoyed contributing to its work on social justice and poverty relief since 2006.

Simon Martin is sales and marketing director for the QV Foods group of companies. He has spent the last four years building relationships and routes to market across all sectors of the fresh and prepared produce industry, from retail to foodservice, for QV Foods.

At the same time, with the introduction of the Inspire by Gregg Wallace brand, he has been a driving force in helping to turn a family-owned business into one of the leading players in its sector. Coupled with the instant success of Fresh Approach, Simon is leading the next exciting stage for the group.

Luca Ascari is vice-president of ABL srl an Italian family-owned company leader in the fresh-cut fruit processing industry, specialising in processing equipment.

Luca joined ABL in 1992 and has covered several positions within the company since then, from purchasing to sales MD.

Together with ABL, Luca believes that a network of international contacts can play a key role in product development of the fresh-cut industry.

Chris White is managing director of Market Intelligence Ltd, the publisher of Eurofruit, Asiafruit and Americafruit Magazines. Chris joined Market Intelligence Ltd in 1988, becoming Eurofruit Magazine editor in 1992. He helped to launch Asiafruit Magazine in 1996 and Americafruit Magazine in 2000. Chris is a regular speaker at fresh produce industry conferences worldwide and is a member of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

Tom Stenzel is president and CEO of the United Fresh Produce Association based in Washington DC in the US. Tom has often been recognised by the produce industry throughout his career and was honoured in Produce Man of the Year in 2002 by The Packer newspaper. Tom has served in many government and industry leadership positions, including the first US Department of Agriculture Fruit and Vegetable Industry Advisory Committee and was an advisor on the US Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade. In 1986, Tom was the founding president of the International Food Information Council (IFIC) and, today, he is a board member at the Produce for Better Health Foundation.?

Daniel Kretzschmar is the produce chain manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Nunhems, the vegetable seed business of Bayer CropScience. Daniel has spent his whole career in development, sales and marketing roles at major companies of the vegetable seed industry, joining Nunhems in 1998 as crop sales manager and country head for France. Daniel and his current team gather information about the needs of the produce chain and use it to steer breeding, develop innovative products and facilitate the right contact between producers and the chain.

Duncan Parsonage is the head of food development at Fresh Direct. Before joining Fresh Direct, he was an executive chef for De Vere Hotels, running two kitchens and a team of 16 people in southern England. Duncan has been a chef since graduating from catering college in 1988, working in kitchens around the world - from Western Australia to Glasgow in Scotland.

Jay Thakrar is a champion of the wholesale and foodservice trade and a specialist in exotic produce. He is a respected character on Western International Market, as director of Jay Shipley Exotics and Slough-based Shipleys Foodservice. This firm prepares fresh fruit and vegetables and distributes product to a wide range of customers in the UK.

Estelle Herszenhorn is the programme manager for food and drink production and distribution at the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Estelle joined WRAP in 2004, becoming part of the food and drink team in April 2011, at the start of WRAP's current four-year business cycle. Estelle's team's objective is to reduce the waste of food, drink, packaging and water within the food and drink supply chain - from the factory in-gate to the point of purchase by consumers.

Frédéric Rosseneu is currently policy adviser at Freshfel Europe, the European Fresh Produce Association.

Frédéric closely follows EU legislation and is particularly involved in European food safety policy. He is also the coordinator of the Freshfel food quality and safety working group, a platform discussing the latest industry and legislative developments concerning food quality and safety.

Frédéric has an engineering degree from the University of Ghent in Belgium, and a masters degree in General Management from the Vlerick Management School. He has worked for the Belgian ministry of agriculture, before joining Freshfel Europe in 2006. Frédéric is also secretary-general of EUROPATAT, the European Potato Trade Association.

Mike Knowles is editor of Eurofruit Magazine, the leading magazine for fresh produce buyers in Europe, and editor of Fruitnet.com, the global fresh produce news website. Since joining Market Intelligence as news editor nine years ago following stints with The Times and Haymarket Media Group, Mike has built up an in-depth knowledge of the European fresh produce sector, visiting markets across Europe and the Middle East as well as producers and suppliers in Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. During the past few years, Mike has spoken at a number of industry conferences including FRESH, Middle East Congress, Southern Hemisphere Congress, Freshconex Congress, ICOP, IFTA Conference and the WUWM Congress.

Klaus Klische is one of the two managing owners of Fresh Factory, which was founded in Hamburg in 1997. Germany's leading fresh cut fruit processor for the foodservice industry sells its products through wholesalers to hotel and catering businesses across the country. Since 1982 Klaus has held several positions in the industry and today he is responsible for Fresh Factory's sales and marketing.

Steven Walpole is the senior executive chef for Gate Gourmet London, over-seeing the menu development and design for predominantly British Airways first class and business class cabins, but also a number of other airlines out of Heathrow.
 
In the three years he has been at Gate the company have radically changed their whole process to a more 'back to basics' approach to food, by putting a big emphasis on seasonality, local sourcing and provenance.  Steven regularly demonstrates his culinary expertise up and down the country and is a consultant for www.fruitandveg.co.uk.

Andrew Gibb is the owner of Andrew Gibb Marketing, a food marketing consultancy that specialises in the commercialisation of innovative food processing technologies including high-pressure processing (HPP) and pulsed electric field processing. Andrew founded the Australian HPP juice and fruit business Preshafood, whose Preshafruit product was voted best new juice and best new beverage concept at the 2009 Beverage Innovation Awards. Preshafruit juices are stocked in more than 4,000 Australian retail outlets, including major supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths and convenience stores such as 7-Eleven.