The judging panel for the 2020 World Dairy Innovation Awards, taking place at the Global Dairy Congress in June, has been announced.
They include recognised and reputable names from across the international dairy food and beverage industry and between them, they will decide the winners of this year’s World Dairy Innovation Awards.
This year’s panel includes big names from Danone, Emmi, Yili and the European Dairy Association and more.
There are 20 trophies to be won in total, and being shortlisted provides a hallmark of success that will prevail long after the awards draw to a close. To find out more information, including how to enter, click here.
A full list of this year’s judges can be seen below.
Jaap Petraeus Managing Director, Dairy Sustainability Support
Jaap Petraeus’ lifetime mission is to Improve Sustainability of Dairy. He was Corporate Manager Sustainability at FrieslandCampina, one of the largest international dairy cooperatives, for over 15 years. At FrieslandCampina he was responsible for the development and implementation of the corporate sustainability policy. He has a large international network in Dairy Sustainability.
Jaap was a member of the SAI Dairy Working Group since 2004, he was the chairman of the Dutch Dairy Energy and Environment group and chairman of the raw material scarcity group of the Dutch Employer Association VNO-NCW.
In 2020 Jaap started his own consultancy firm Dairy Sustainability Support that supports dairy processors worldwide to improve the sustainability of their dairy products.
Click here to view Jaap’s LinkedIn profile
Kinga Adamaszwili Senior Nutrition, Health & Food Law Officer, European Dairy Association
Kinga Adamaszwili is a Senior Nutrition, Health & Food Law Officer at the European Dairy Association (EDA) where she is responsible for the EU food policy topics related to health & nutrition, claims & labelling and food ingredients.
Before joining EDA, she has worked for several years in a Brussels-based trade association representing the European consumer health care industry (AESGP) as a Manager for Food Related Issues in charge of food supplements regulatory affairs.
Kinga has professional experience in the fields of nutrition, food legislation and public health in a number of organisations, including the Polish Chief Sanitary Inspectorate in Warsaw, the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe in Copenhagen (WHO Europe), the European Commission Food and Veterinary Office in Ireland (FVO) and the European Food Safety Authority in Parma (EFSA).
She studied at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences and at the Life Sciences Faculty of the University of Copenhagen. She holds a Master Degree in human nutrition, food technology and consumer sciences.
Click here to view Kinga’s LinkedIn profile
Tolga Sezer CEO, Al Safi Danone
Tolga Sezer is currently CEO of Al Safi Danone a joint venture between Al Faisaliah Group Al Safi Dairy Company and Groupe Danone of France. The company combines Danone global expertise in dairy innovation with Al Safi’s deep knowledge of the Middle East consumer market. ASD is a powerhouse of some leading dairy brands like Al Safi, Activia, Danette, Danao, Actimel and Safio. ASD supplies fresh dairy products to more than 32,000 retailers in 14 countries across the Middle East region. ASD also operates the world’s largest integrated dairy farm, with some 55,000 cows producing more than 1 million litres of fresh milk every day.
Between 2015 and 2018 Tolga Sezer has been CEO of Aujan Coca-Cola Beverages Co. Aujan Coca-Cola Beverages Co. is a $750 million regional beverages business in 50/49 partnership with The Coca-Cola Company. Direct operations in 15 markets across Middle East and North Africa, exports to 75 markets. Manufacturing in Dubai, UAE; Dammam, KSA; Cairo, Egypt; Beirut, Lebanon.
Tolga Sezer has also held senior management roles in Unilever and Yildiz Holding (Ulker, Godiva, and United Biscuits) and Masafi Co. LLC based in Dubai
Tolga Sezer holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from Istanbul University and an Organizational Leadership degree from INSEAD.
Click here to see Tolga’s LinkedIn profile
Donna Berry Owner, Dairy & Food Communications
Donna Berry is the owner of Dairy & Food Communications, a company that specializes in business-to-business writing, speaking and consulting projects in the dairy, beverage and food industries. She has a Bachelors Degree in Food Science from the University of Illinois and product development industry experience with Kraft Foods. She has been writing for the dairy trade since 1993; she opened her own business in 2000.
Donna has been tracking consumer behaviours and food trends, with an emphasis on dairy, for more than 25 years. She currently writes for numerous trade publications, including Food Business News, Meat & Poultry, Baking & Snack, Culinology and Pet Food Processing. Until February 2012, she had been the ingredient technology editor and new products trend tracker for Dairy Foods magazine.
After 18 years on Dairy Foods, she decided it was time to share her knowledge via other publications and media channels. Almost immediately she started her own website, aptly named BerryOnDairy.com, which includes an email newsletter called Daily Dose of Dairy that focuses on innovations in dairy products and related beverages.
Donna is a native of Chicago, where she currently resides with her husband, two sons and dog. Donna enjoys travelling, both domestically and abroad, and makes grocery store visits a priority in every city she visits, which enables her to be an authority on ingredient technology and new product trends.
Click here to view Donna’s LinkedIn profile
Thomas Morf Chief Marketing Officer and Member of the Executive Board, EMMI Group
Thomas Morf has been CMO of the Emmi Group and a member of the Executive Board since mid-2017. After completing his Masters at the University of St.Gallen, he moved abroad to work for P&G as a process engineer in Belgium. He then moved into marketing and worked for P&G in the EMEA Headquarter in Geneva and Paris.
2007 to 2017, Thomas worked for Danone in Germany, in Paris and South Africa in local and central marketing and innovation roles. He was most recently Managing Director for Danone in Johannesburg before moving back to Switzerland and joining the Emmi group.
Click here to view Thomas’s LinkedIn profile
Raquel Melo Vice President of Product Innovation, Dairy Brands Division of Dairy Farmers of America
Raquel Melo is Vice President of Product Innovation for the Dairy Brands Division of Dairy Farmers of America, the largest dairy cooperative in the United States. Until recently, she was vice president of Innovation and New Business Development at Land O’Lakes Inc. Melo began her marketing career at General Mills, Inc.
Click here to view Raquel’s LinkedIn profile
Gerrit Smit Managing Director, Yili Innovation Center
Gerrit Smit (PhD) is the managing director of Yili Innovation Center Europe, which is based in The Netherlands.
Before joining Yili, he worked as the senior vice president of research and development (R&D) at Valio, Finland (2011-2015), where he was responsible for the R&D portfolio, in particular the long-term strategy, and open innovation with external partners.
Previous to that, he worked in Unilever (2004-2011) as the director of R&D covering the areas of flavour and consumer research, as well as leading Open Innovation in the area of flavours. He also was a member of the global management team of the Unilever Food and Health Research Institute.
From 1993 until 2004, he worked at NIZO food research in The Netherlands, where he was a board member responsible for the Flavour, Nutrition and Ingredients departments. Moreover, he held an endowed professorship for 12 years at Wageningen University (NL) in Molecular Flavour Science.
Click here to view Gerrit’s LinkedIn profile
Marcelo Pereira de Carvalho Founder and CEO, AgriPoint
Founder and CEO at AgriPoint, a company that provides qualified information for the dairy market in Brazil through many channels: websites, symposiums and consulting services. Its website MilkPoint is the largest think tank for the dairy sector in Brazil, with over 100.000 subscribers. Its MilkPoint Mercado dairy market intelligence service has over 230 corporate customers.
Marcelo gave more than 300 talks in 19 countries in the last 10 years, on the following topics: Brazilian dairy market perspectives; World dairy trade and perspectives; Supply chain management in the dairy sector and milk promotion; strategy and dairy innovation.
Agronomist, graduated at the University of São Paulo (1992), with a master degree in Animal Sciences at the same University (1988) and a MBA through FIA – Fundação Instituto de Administração (2005).
Marcelo is also Co-founder of AgTech Garage, a connection hub for agtech startups and corporations in Brazil.
Click here to view Marcelo’s LinkedIn profile
Greg Miller Global Chief Science Officer, National Dairy Council
Gregory D Miller, PhD, MACN, is Global CSO for National Dairy Council, and Adjunct Associate Professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois. He is also Nutritional Security Sector Lead for the Global Dairy Platform and is recognised as a leading voice in the global food system. He is currently leading the effort to enhance dairy’s contributions toward a more sustainable food system by examining the intersection between nutrition, health, food insecurity, and environmental impact.
Dr Miller graduated in 1978 from Michigan State University with a B.S. degree in Nutrition, in 1982 earned a M.S. and in 1986 a Ph.D. in Nutrition (Toxicology) from The Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Miller is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry and served on the editorial board of many other journals. He has served as President for the American College of Nutrition. He was a Member of the Board of Directors for the American Society for Nutrition.
In October of 2016, Dr Miller was appointed to a Food and Agricultural Organization HLPE to carry out a study on Nutrition and Food Systems that fed into the CFS debates at the 44th session in 2017.
Dr Miller has presented more than 120 invited lectures and has published more than 160 research papers, reviews, articles, and abstracts. He has co-edited three books on diet, nutrition, and toxicology and contributed chapters to nine books.
Click here to view Greg’s LinkedIn profile
Gersain Soto R&I Senior Packaging Manager, Danone Mexico
Dairy industry is challenging in terms of product differentiation, making the job of innovators more agile and with different hurdles where Packaging and Product development must work in synergy to provide the best experience to the consumer.
Over the last 15 years Gersain Soto has focused on best in class packaging development and innovation. He has a solid and international career in the food and dairy industry, where he has been able to implement iconic and disruptive packaging concepts together with established suppliers and or new suppliers developed according to the needs.
Thanks to his international and multicultural approach developed on his experience in LATAM, Europe and Asia, he is able to translate the different consumer needs and “pains” into successful Packaging propositions and convert those concepts in real business with a Top Line and marketing focus; using technology to move ahead and as basis for disruption and sustainability within the innovation process.
Click here to view Gersain’s LinkedIn profile
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