Mark Dodds DipM FCIM

At Roythornes, he is responsible for strategic direction, tactical activity and front-line implementation including web, social media and events.Profile:
Mark is the marketing manager for Roythornes Solicitors – a law firm with a particular strength in the agriculture and food sectors.

He is a Fellow of the CIM and his career spans a wide range of professional services including financial services, property management and the law.

Interesting fact:
Mark once organised a Royal visit for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh which involved resurfacing a road, a barbecue for 350 and numerous sniffer dogs.  He’s a keen reader of geo-political thrillers such Tom Clancy and counts one of his highlights as being allowed inside the Pentagon in Washington DC (on the strict understanding he didn’t touch anything!).

Delia Mertoiu ACIM

Marketing Manager for Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST).
Delia has extensive experience in organising and promoting a wide range of events from conferences, symposiums, lectures, and student career events at the national and international levels. She has a strong understanding of the challenges marketing faces within the food and drink sector.

Delia has a master’s degree in marketing worked in HR, finance, and business analysis. She appreciates the relationship management side of her role and enjoys building strong relationships with members, stakeholders, suppliers, and corporate partners by fully understanding their professional needs, strategies and objectives.

Stuart Thomson

Profile:

Stuart has advised some of the UK’s leading food businesses on supply chain and raw material strategy.

In the 1990s he headed up the NFUs food policy unit before joining EFFP to build the profile and service offer in the food industry. He is also a CEDR accredited mediator with expertise in building joint business plans and partnerships between businesses.

Martin Sutherland FCIM

Martin is Commercial and Marketing Director at the Food Industry centre at Cardiff Met University. Martin joined the Food Industry Centre in 2014. His knowledge of the requirements of both suppliers and retailers enables him to provide strategic, marketing, category management and trade engagement support for food and drink companies.

His food industry experience started with McVitie’s, where he was Marketing Manager for the Penguin brand. He then joined Tesco and was responsible for marketing the chilled product category which included own label development. His food industry career continued at Somerfield Supermarkets where he was Brand Marketing Director and a member of the Executive.

Martin returned to the supplier-side as Marketing Director at Bon Bon Buddies, a Blackwood based confectionery company before becoming a Director of a food and drink consultancy business.

Martin graduated in Agricultural and Food Marketing from Aberystwyth University/University of California, Davis and has an MSc in Food Policy from City University, London.

Rachel Cullis Dorsett

I have worked as a marketing and comms professional for over 30 years beginning my career as the PR lead for the BBC’s iconic food and drink programming, working with the greats including Delia Smith and Rick Stein and launching the broadcasting careers of Nigella and Jamie Oliver.

For the last 15 years I have specialised in providing strategic PR for the food and drink industry, from hospitality to alcohol, manufacturing businesses to artisan producers. I was instrumental in helping Melton Mowbray achieve its Rural Food Capital status and supported the growth of the East Midlands Food and Drink Festival – championing producers in the area.

In 2013 I joined the international marketing team of the California Dried Plum Board, a billion-dollar industry which exports prunes to over 70 countries around the world. I was responsible for managing the international PR for five markets in Europe, communicating the health benefits of prunes, which had just been awarded an EFSA endorsement for gut health, which transformed its business model.

In 2016 I joined a Nottingham based PR agency as a company director, to set up and launch a new food and drink department before launching my own specialist food, drink and leisure PR agency in 2020, which currently employs a team of five senior PR professionals. The business has grown significantly in two years and our clients now range from restaurants, to farmers, drinks producers and food manufacturers to country estates and historic house across the UK.