Campden BRI Millers' Day

Martin Whitworth, Campden BRI

Martin has worked at Campden BRI and its predecessors since 1992. He has an MA and PhD in physics from Cambridge University, and an impressive number of food research publications from his time with us. He currently provides support and peer review for our research programme.

Martin specialises in physical characterisation of food products and ingredients including colour, structure and texture, with particular expertise in the application of imaging techniques and digital image analysis.

Martin has experience in cereal science and technology. He is a leading expert on bubble structure of doughs and baked products. He established our imaging laboratory, now part of our Food and Drink Microstructure team, which includes DigiEye colour imaging, hyperspectral NIR imaging and X-ray micro CT. He was the inventor of the C-Cell instrument for measurement of bread quality, and pioneered the use of X-ray tomography to study bread and cake structure during baking. He also carried out the initial research that led to the Branscan and Fluoroscan instruments for flour quality analysis.

Alistair Gale, Chief Executive Officer, UK Flour Millers

Alistair joined UK Flour Millers in May 2023. UK Flour Millers is the trade body for the UK flour milling industry, supporting members by facilitating reliable, sustainable and affordable supplies of wheat, providing training, promoting good practice in health and safety, advocating for the industry, shaping and supporting long-term research and development.

At UK Flour Millers Alistair oversees all activities of the association and representing the UK flour milling industry. Prior to joining the millers, Alistair worked for the UK’s largest cement makers, Blue Circle Cement in communications and, for 16 years the largest UK Trust Port, the Port of London Authority as director of corporate affairs and strategy. He has a BA (Hons) in geography.

Kirsty Richards, KWS

Having worked in the UK agricultural industry for the past 20 years, Kirsty Richards started her journey at Bath University where she gained a degree in Applied Biology, including a years placement at Cyanamid Agriculture. Following this she moved to Bristol University where she gained a PhD, sponsored by AgrEvo UK, by investigating the role of oil-based adjuvants in pesticide formulation. After finishing Bristol, Kirsty decided to make the transition from technical to commercial, her first roles including as a spray consultant for the clients of Crop Management Information Limited, followed by her product manager position at spray nozzle manufacturer Hypro EU Limited. For the past 18 years, Kirsty has been working for the UK’s leading cereal breeder, KWS UK, most recently in the position of Cereals Product Manager. During her time at KWS she has worked extensively across the grain supply chain with the aim of linking plant breeders with all members of the supply chain, specifically focusing on downstream interactions with millers, maltsters, end processors right through to the retailers. She passionately believes that to face the future challenges that climate change imposes on us all, future grain products will only be successful if the supply chain becomes more open, transparent and connected.

Cathryn Fox, The Met Office

Cathryn is a senior scientist in the International Applied Science and Services team at the Met Office. She has a PhD in Atmospheric Physics from Imperial College London, and a Masters in Physics.

Her expertise is in the analysis of regional climate model results, and tailoring outputs to produce climate information for use by decision-makers in varied sectors such as food security, international development, and climate risk assurance. She has extensive experience in the development and delivery of climate information training activities, and aims to pull-through Met Office scientific capabilities into well-informed authoritative advice to stakeholders.

Ulrike Ehgartner, University of York / Fix our Food

Dr Ulrike Ehgartner is a Researcher at the School for Business and Society, University of York. She specializes in addressing food system challenges, driven by a commitment to sustainability and transformational change, exploring critical issues such as environmental sustainability, social inequality and behaviour change. As part of the FixOurFood she researches on local food economy initiatives and their potential to transform production and consumption practices, with a particular focus on the wheat supply chain.

Michael Adams, Campden BRI

Mike has worked in the food and beverage industry since 2006. Before joining us at Campden BRI in 2016, Mike worked in technical, quality and R&D roles within Mission Foods, PepsiCo, and Holland & Barrett. Mike studied for a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology at the University of Manchester, graduating in 2005.

Mike’s team support various clients, providing innovation services, research and analysis across a wide range of products, using our state-of-the-art laboratories and pilot plant facilities.

Helen Arrowsmith, Campden BRI

After her PhD, Helen joined Campden BRI in 2004 when she spent a year as Technical Support Officer in the Food Composition Section. The next nine years were spent in the Biochemistry Section, where Helen managed the provision of technical contract services in the area of food allergen detection, provided interpretation of testing results, consultancy, information and advice on food allergen testing.

In 2014, Helen moved to our Regulatory team where she has gained comprehensive understanding and experience of food law, not just relating to food allergens.

Helen now uses her knowledge and expertise to provide advice on all aspects of UK and harmonised EU legislation, including relating to food allergens. Helen presents on scheduled and tailored training courses on food law and food allergens, and oversees the production of our Food Law Alert.

Helen has managed various research projects; in 2023 she supervised and contributed to a Review of the literature and guidance on food allergen cleaning for the Food Standards Agency . Helen has also co-authored two guidance documents for the food industry on ‘Validation of cleaning to remove food allergens’ (Campden BRI Guideline 59) and ‘Food allergens: practical risk analysis, testing and action levels’ (Campden BRI Guideline 71).

Karol Roberts, Frank Roberts and Sons Ltd

Karol Roberts is Head of Bakery Excellence at Frank Roberts and Sons Ltd (Roberts Bakery) based in Cheshire.

Karol has a degree in Food Technology specialising in cereal science. During her career of over 40 years she has covered all technical aspects of Food Safety and Quality before moving into product development and R&D, which she headed up for more than 15 years.

She now has a role delivering the in-house Bakery Excellence Programme for all bakery production staff at intermediate and advanced level, covering both the theoretical and practical aspects of bread manufacturing.

Her broad knowledge of both flour and functional ingredients coupled with practical experience provides continual day-to-day support to deliver product quality.

She has also been the representative for Roberts Bakery on the Federation of Bakers technical panel for the past 20 years.

Paul Sharp, Kings College London

Paul Sharp is currently Professor of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London but will join the University of Leeds in summer 2024 as Head of the School of Food Science and Nutrition. Paul’s academic training was in physiology (BSc, Newcastle) and biochemistry (PhD, London) and he has worked for more than 30 years on the mechanisms regulating nutrient absorption and metabolism. He leads a multidisciplinary team using in vitro models, molecular biology and feeding studies in human volunteers to assess the impact of food structure and food processing on mineral bioaccessibility and bioavailability.