Archives: Speakers

Odile has been working in the Food Industry for more than 25 years and has held different roles for major dairy ingredients compagnies in Europe. She has a strong expertise in B2B marketing and products innovation, and has a very good knowledge of the application of proteins ingredients. Odile joined Fonterra 2 years ago and currently works in the European technical innovation team, providing technical support to Fonterra’s EU & Africa customers on their applications.

Gerrit Smit (PhD) is the managing director of Yili Innovation Center Europe, which is based in The Netherlands. This centre is aiming to bridge Yili’s Innovation Centers in China with strategic collaboration parties in Europe; being academia, contract research institutes, key suppliers as well as other dairy and food companies. Before joining Yili he worked as SVP R&D at Valio, Finland (2011-2015), where he was responsible for the R&D portfolio and in particular the long-term strategy, and open innovation with external partners. Previous to that, he worked in Unilever (2004-2011) as Director R&D covering the areas of Flavour and Consumer Research as well as leading the Open Innovation in the area of flavours. He also was a member of the global manage-ment 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 departments Flavour, Nutrition and Ingredients. Moreover, he held for 12 years an en-dowed professorship at Wageningen University (NL) in Molecular Flavour Science. Gerrit got his MSc degree in Molecular Microbiology and Biochemistry, at Utrecht University, and got his PhD degree in 1988 at Leiden University. He also worked as a post-doc for 2 years in R&D in the United States, fol-lowed by a staff position for 2 years at Leiden University.

Jack is responsible for GlobalData’s non-alcoholic beverage consulting. He spends his days scoping and delivering a wide variety of beverages projects on behalf of global players. Jack has ten years’ experience in FMCG strategy – in both consulting and data analytics roles – and previously worked for NPD Group and Kantar. His insights on various consumer markets have been featured in The Economist, The Telegraph, and numerous industry publications.

His industrial experiences commenced in 1984, which saw him working in various roles in the processing and food sectors. He originally joined Cama in 1990 in his present role as the county manager in France, with a focus on business development. Having left the company in 2000, he re-joined in 2017 and, following the departure of his predecessor, was once again offered the role of country manager. Therville heads a very dedicated French team, comprising mechanical and software service engineers, sales operatives, sales-support personnel and office-support staff

Sophie is Product Development Director for Givaudan Taste & Wellbeing in Europe where she works with her team to define, test and commercialize innovations from the Givaudan food & beverage portfolio for European high growth platforms. She was previously Innovation Director for Sweet Goods & Dairy for Europe, Africa and the Middle East at Givaudan and also spent 12 years at Givaudan leading teams driving commercialization of sensory and consumer relevant innovation. Sophie has worked for Kraft Foods, Bel Group and HJ Heinz in various roles in the domain of sensory science and consumer insights. She graduated from the Institut National Supérieur de Formation Agro-alimentaire with a master’s degree in Food Science.