Moderated by Ben Gray MS, RD
Co-founder and CIO of Upcycled Food Association
SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
1:15–2:00 PM ET
RM 205B & 205C – BEANFIELD CENTRE
THE PANELISTS
(Outcast Foods)
(Solnul™)
(Barry Callebaut)
SESSION INFO
Reducing food waste is the #1 solution to mitigating the climate crisis. Upcycled Food Association (UFA) is on a mission to build the sustainable food system of the future. UFA brings together global entrepreneurs, retailers, and legacy brands to address the challenge of food waste through innovative, sustainable, and delicious solutions. Since its launch in the summer of 2021, third-party Upcycled Certified™ ingredients and products have collectively diverted over 385 million KGs of food waste.
Learn more about the upcycled food industry, Upcycled Certified™ products and ingredients and how to get involved from UFA co-founder and CIO, Ben Gray and upcycled entrepreneurs William Shillingsburg , Outcast Foods, Cara Kennedy, Director of Marketing, Solnul™ and Lotte Anderson, Barry Callebaut.
ABOUT BEN GRAY MS, RD
Ben Gray MS, RD is a co-founder and the Chief Innovation Officer of the Upcycled Food Association, a trade association whose mission is to reduce food waste by growing the Upcycled Food economy. Ben leads medium and long term strategy at UFA and serves as a Co-Chair of the Upcycled Certified™ Standards Committee which wrote the world’s first and only Standard for the certification of upcycled food in ingredients and products. He is a registered dietitian and food and nutrition expert with past appointments as affiliate faculty in several university nutrition departments. Ben holds a deep affection for food and is driven daily by the bold vision of a food system that can sustain all peoples and our planet. He is excited to support innovative brands and the extraordinary people behind them, and proud to help grow an organization that sees equitable participation and being evidence-based as central to the mission of reducing food waste.
ABOUT WILLIAM SHILLINGSBURG
Mr. Shillingsburg has over 20 years of experience on the retail side of the equation with GNC, the worldwide leader in the nutritional retail space. With his last appointment being the lead of the GNC Canada footprint. This gives Outcast a unique glimpse into what today’s retailers are looking to put on their shelves. Furthermore, William has years of experience in bringing international brands to the U.S. retail shelf space. Many of these brands and products are widely known, and they continue to work their way up the charts at major retailers coast to coast.
ABOUT CARA KENNEDY
As the Director of Marketing at MSP Starch Products Inc. (Solnul™), Cara navigates through the world of scientific reports and consumer data to share the meaningful resistant starch story with the world. She’s seen firsthand how the power of Solnul™ has helped so many people with GI distress and believes resistant starch is the key to revolutionizing digestive health. As a steward of the planet, she gets fulfillment by working with natural health brands that demand transparency in the food system. She’s an integral part of the sustainability strategy at MSP Starch Products Inc.
ABOUT LOTTE ANDERSON
Driven by her passion for food, Lotte left her native Sweden to study Culinary Art at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She worked as a chef both in France & Canada until she joined Barry Callebaut as Sales Manager in 2008. For the last 14 years, Lotte has been supporting the chocolate industry, managing customers from the artisan chocolatiers to the larger manufacturers.
Today, she is the Commercial Director for the Gourmet and Specialties division at Barry Callebaut Canada and chocolate and sustainability is fundamental to her work.
She calls herself fortunate to work for a company working hand in hand with the Cocoa Horizons Foundation and whose goal is to make sustainable chocolate the norm. Cocoa Horizons is an independent, non-profit organization supervised by the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority, working to improve the livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities through the promotion of sustainable, entrepreneurial farming, improved productivity, and community development, which protect nature and children.