Program

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.

Chris Jones began his culinary career in the kitchens of some of Chicago’s finest restaurants. Working with famed Chefs he helped gain and maintain Michelin stars and became educated in what it takes to run a successful restaurant. But something was missing. Chris wished to see a change in the world, a change in our food system allowing it to become more sustainable. This path led him to Just in San Francisco where he was cultivated and inspired to research and develop new products that would inevitably change the way we look at food. Part inventor, chef and artist Chris Jones has driven the food system forward and is challenging many to rethink the way we look at food.

Brigette Wolf serves as the newly appointed Global Head of SnackFutures Innovation, Mondelez’s new innovation and venture hub that will play a critical role in the company’s aggressive global growth agenda. In this role, Brigette is a key architect in the building of a multi-functional ecosystem consisting of internal experts and cutting edge external partners around the world to drive innovation in a new and different way. In the SnackFutures model of Invent, Reinvent and Venture, Brigette’s focus is driving the development of new brands and businesses in the Well Being and Premium Space. Brigette has been with Mondelez for 6 1/2 half years, and in that time served as the senior director of Global Platform Innovation for the Gum & Candy and Biscuits categories as well the senior brand manager for Global belVita innovation. Prior to this Brigette was with Kraft Foods for almost 10 years having served as the Global Innovation Manager for Oreo and the Brand Manager of several of the pizza and meal brands. Prior to being part of the food industry, Brigette worked for Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley in investment banking. Brigette received her undergraduate degree from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management.

A passionate change agent, Behroze partners with business leaders in the food industry to drive product innovation. With a knack for distilling complex, technical problems into actionable solutions, she designs proprietary, innovative, consumer-centric products. Behroze has worked at Coca-Cola Foods, General Mills, Ruiz Foods and currently is VP of Innovation and R&D at Boulder Brands, which is now part of Conagra. Her experience spans diverse food products, including plant-based, gluten-free, grains, baking mixes, refrigerated and frozen products. Behroze also has worked in a JV and in international markets, including Latin America, Asia, Europe and Canada. In these settings, she built high-performing global teams that worked across functions and geographical borders to drive global business growth. Her favourite quote: When everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking (George Patton).

Tammy is a passionate believer in innovation, the future of the food industry, and how we all as a community inspire great progress. She has built up a broad range of experiences within product development, strategy and also marketing within leading companies like Mars and PepsiCo, and more recently she is partnering with the entrepreneurial start up communities in the food and drink space. Currently she looks after Breakthrough Innovation within PepsiCo’s nutrition category- committed to supporting the performance with purpose agenda and bringing the right products to market for our consumers in this space. Tammy has recently relocated from the UK to Chicago with her family, and is enjoying photographing new sights and exploring the locally available chocolates.

Cliff is an award-winning chef and product developer who specializes in elevating food. From turning airplane meals into a hot commodity to making healthy eating delicious, Cliff is known in the U.S. and abroad for creating high-quality innovative food at scale. Chef Cliff grew up knowing firsthand the impact of childhood hunger while growing up in Midwest. Because of his personal experiences, he is excited to join Revolution Foods’ team and help fuel children’s minds and bodies. Cliff has headed up Culinary and Product development for Brands such as: Revolution, Foods Emirates, Airline Alaska/Virgin America Airline and Sprig.

Michael Frankel is Vice President of Sales, North America for Selerant Corporation, a leading supplier of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions for process manufacturers in the food and beverage, personal care and specialty chemical industries. Michael has been with Selerant since 2011 and has over 15 years of highly successful PLM sales experience working with leading global companies to both justify and automate their product development processes. The topic of his presentation on “Extending PLM throughout the Supply Chain Using Portal Technology” a is critical component of consideration in PLM and quality management initiatives for food manufactures.

Nikolas brings 12 years’ experience working across the research sector. A ‘classically trained’ qualitative researcher turned social prediction expert, his practitioner background offers a new and fresh perspective on how to use, apply and humanize data to drive change. A specialist in commercialising big data and insight propositions for global brands and businesses, Nikolas co-founded Black Swan's Insight & Innovation division – now known as Black Swan Data following an acquisition by the Black Swan Group. Nikolas continues to advise FTSE 100 businesses globally - for brands including Danone, McDonalds, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Mondelez & Unilever, to name a few - to drive innovation through the power of social intelligence programmes.

Owen Klein has been spearheading CKE Restaurants’ culinary innovation department for more than three years, ensuring creativity and excellent quality in each product for both Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. Owen came to CKE from Culinary Sales Support Inc., where he spent seven years leading a team of R&D chefs and running the consultancy’s first international outpost office in China. Prior to this, Owen worked as a fine-dining chef at numerous Michelin-rated restaurants. He has been spotlighted in national publications including Food & Wine, Fox News, Yahoo! and QSR Magazine, and has been a keynote speaker at industry-leading conferences. Owen obtained degrees in Professional Cooking and Baking from Baltimore International College and Microbiology from the University of Maryland.

• Caroline Miron has been the Head of Open innovation for Agropur for over 2 years. She and her team of intrapreneurs lead the development of successful agile innovation practices within one of the largest dairy in North America. With the help of her team, Caroline built Agropur’s first incubator and first accelerator, which welcomes selected participants of their Inno Challenge, probably the first dairy open innovation challenge. Caroline, has a marketing brand management background and is specialized in innovation for the CPG industry for the last 14 years. Caroline started her career with Groupe Danone launching Activia in Canada and then worked in the USA and at the global HQ Paris as well as in the skincare industry at Nivea (Beiersdorf) before joining Agropur.

Gary Nowacki has been the CEO of TraceGains since its launch in 2008. Prior to TraceGains, Gary spent 13 years in a variety of software industry executive positions in the ERP (enterprise resource planning), supply chain management, and quality space for food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, and other process industries. Gary has also held management and individual contributor positions in programming, implementation services, and sales in the ERP software business. Gary’s prior work experience includes serving in senior management roles at CDC Software – Ross Systems, a leading ERP supplier to the food industry.

Molly Hug is a Consumer Insights professional with over 17 years of experience in the Casual Dining Restaurant segment having worked on multiple brands including Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and most recently Red Lobster. She is the voice of the consumer for multiple areas of the business including advertising, product development, and the overall guest experience. A trained focus group moderator and proficient in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, her goal is to transform consumer data into meaningful and actionable insights to aid smarter decision making and ultimately strengthen the business. Originally from the Midwest, Molly resides in Orlando, Florida, holds a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Central Florida and an MBA from Stetson University. In her free time, she enjoys travel, yoga, volunteering for the Second Harvest Food Bank and performs improv comedy at a local theater.

Joel Warady serves as both General Manager, and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of Enjoy Life Foods, a leading brand in the North American Gluten-Free, Allergy-Friendly CPG category that has experienced 11 consecutive years of growth under his guidance. He has been ranked as one of the Top 50 CMOs on Twitter by Social Media Marketing Magazine, one of the Top 50 Most Influential CMOs on Social Media by Forbes.com and most recently was included in Brand Quarterly magazine’s list of 50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50. Joel is proud to serve as an advocate for the food intolerant and food allergy communities within the North American food industry, with a focus on proper labeling and food safety.

For more than three decades, serial entrepreneur Severin Weiss has created and expanded international business systems. Weiss is widely recognized as a global expert in integrated PLM software process solutions for recipe-based food and beverage manufacturers. He founded SpecPage in 2006.

Mike believes that startups and large, multinational businesses can transform industries by working together. With more than 20 years of experience in the sales, business, and corporate innovation spaces, Mike currently serves as the Vice President of Corporate Development for MassChallenge. In this role, he leads the functional group responsible for helping MassChallenge's corporate partners achieve innovation-related outcomes through relationships with high-potential startups that are aligned with strategic priorities.

Amy Sunderman is a distinguished registered dietitian, nutritionist and author with over 19 years of experience in the supplement industry. Passionate about dietary supplements and the health benefits they offer, at Swanson Health, Amy is responsible for the safety, efficacy, stability, quality and scientific support of Swanson-branded vitamins, minerals and supplements. She’s contributed to Swanson Health’s award-winning innovation by working to find novel nutritional ingredients with strong clinical research behind them to drive innovation and provide health-promoting products to consumers. Amy previously served as the Senior Associate Medical and Innovation Lead for Schiff Nutrition International where she created new formulas for well-known brands, including Airborne®, Mega Red® and Digestive Advantage®. Throughout her career, she has worked as a research scientist, using her expertise to conduct scientific reviews and formula recommendations of ingredients lead by in-depth analysis of publicly available and proprietary scientific research. She has a bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science, and a master’s degree in nutrition from the University of Utah. She is the co-author of Dietary Supplements (Momentum Press, 2016) with B. Bryan Haycock. Based in Utah, Amy enjoys a variety of outdoor sports including hiking and skiing with her family, encouraging them to adopt life-long healthy habits.

Cliff is an award-winning chef and product developer who specializes in elevating food. From turning airplane meals into a hot commodity to making healthy eating delicious, Cliff is known in the U.S. and abroad for creating high-quality innovative food at scale. Chef Cliff grew up knowing firsthand the impact of childhood hunger while growing up in Midwest. Because of his personal experiences, he is excited to join Revolution Foods’ team and help fuel children’s minds and bodies. Cliff has headed up Culinary and Product development for Brands such as: Revolution, Foods Emirates, Airline Alaska/Virgin America Airline and Sprig.

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.

Joel Warady serves as both General Manager, and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of Enjoy Life Foods, a leading brand in the North American Gluten-Free, Allergy-Friendly CPG category that has experienced 11 consecutive years of growth under his guidance. He has been ranked as one of the Top 50 CMOs on Twitter by Social Media Marketing Magazine, one of the Top 50 Most Influential CMOs on Social Media by Forbes.com and most recently was included in Brand Quarterly magazine’s list of 50 Marketing Thought Leaders Over 50. Joel is proud to serve as an advocate for the food intolerant and food allergy communities within the North American food industry, with a focus on proper labeling and food safety.

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.

Ravi is a seasoned food R&D professional and has worked with some of the most reputed consumer dairy companies in the world, including Schreiber Foods, Chobani, Wells Blue Bunny & Sargento. Ravi’s R&D background spans across dairy product categories -- be it yogurt, cheese, ice cream or high value functional foods -- a rare find in the field of dairy science; And in general, he has extensive knowledge of ingredients in dairy product applications. Ravi is playing a critical role at Perfect Day in defining key dairy product attributes and benchmarks for protein functionality. In the pursuit to create dairy products without compromise, he is leveraging his dairy industry product, process, supply chain, product safety & regulatory experience. Ravi ensures that the yeast-derived casein, whey protein, fat & carbohydrate alternatives that Perfect Day uses to develop dairy alternative ingredients are compliant, scalable, minimally capital intensive and more importantly delivers on taste & texture characteristics as the company readies itself to commercialization phase.

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.

Stephanie is currently the vice president of marketing and innovation at La Terra Fina. For more than 20 years Stephanie has focused her efforts on growing natural food brands. She oversees all marketing efforts from innovation through consumer purchase. She thinks of the product journey as it meets the consumer journey and sees her role as match maker for the two. Using data and gut responses, Stephanie and her small team have launched more than 30 products since 2013. The brand has grown by more than 3X since her start in late 2012 and she anticipates more new items for 2019. She attributes success of innovation to the strategic partnership between marketing and development, and marketing and sales.

Joe Heitzeberg is the co-founder and CEO of Crowd Cow. Prior to leading the startup that connects consumers with small-batch, independent farms, Joe was president of Madrona Venture Labs where he identified opportunities and built products and teams to spin them out as independent companies. Before joining Madrona, he held several executive roles including CTO at Whitepages.com. Joe attended MIT Sloan School of Management and the University of Washington. Now, he spends most of his days meeting with independent farmers and sourcing high-quality, sustainably produced meats around the country. Follow his adventures around the country at @jheitzeb.

Andria is a leading growth expert and transformational innovator who has successfully driven strategic growth at 5 Fortune 1000 companies in the intensely competitive CPG space across food, beverage and personal care. She has held senior executive leadership positions for both public and private companies, including Vice President of Innovation & Strategy at Sara Lee and Vice President of Innovation & Consumer Insights at Johnsonville. After 20+ years of working on some of the worlds most recognized and valuable brands like Sara Lee, Cheez-It, Huggies, St. Ives, Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, and Johnsonville, Andria has synthesized her learnings and developed her own proven approach to deliver transformational growth. Andria shares her wealth of knowledge and extensive food industry experience by providing advisory services to companies looking to accelerate growth and speaking on cutting edge topics in the industry.

Emily Splett is the Director of Menu Development at Farmer’s Fridge, where she leads the end-to-end product development process to support the company’s mission of making fresh, healthy food as accessible as a candy bar. From working with food start-ups and marketing agencies to strategically managing categories and brands in Fortune 100 companies, Emily provides a well-rounded perspective on what drives consumer connections to branded products. Prior to Farmer’s Fridge, she led the brand and menu development for Tyson Tastemakers meal kits, which debuted as Amazon’s first line of meal kits in 2016. Emily holds a BA in Consumer Behavior and Business Studies from New York University and an MBA in Marketing Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Chris grew up in a small town west of Chicago. He started his culinary career at the young age of 14, working in a small local pizzeria. Working in kitchens all throughout school, Chris attended Eastern Illinois University for his undergraduate studies focusing on Foods in Business and soon after graduation started Kendall College’s Culinary Arts Program. During his schooling Chris was introduced to Chef Joel Findlay Chef/Owner of 302 West. 302 West was at its time one of the countries finest restaurants. Chris apprenticed at 302 and while there met his wife Sarah who was also a Chef. Chef Kline’s other restaurant experiences include, French Bistro, Jazz Supper Club, Private Dining Clubs, Corporate Dining, and numerous Fine Dining/White Table cloth restaurants. Chef’s culinary highlight was being invited to participate at the James Beard House with a Niche’ Restaurant. After his restaurant career, Chris’s culinary path took another direction, back to the scientific side. Amazed by the manufacturing aspect of the business, Chris took the same approach he learned in the kitchens and started to crave knowledge of the different segments of the business. He then started with a refrigerated Food Company, called Orval Kent / Chef Solutions, where in less than 3 years launched over 85 products throughout North America. Next he packed up his family and moved to Connecticut to work as a Chef / Bakery Product Technologist for R&D team of Pepperidge Farm. After hundreds of Milano cookies & few years in the Northeast, he then traveled to Florida and worked for Cargill as Strategic Accounts Chef developing sauces and dressing for companies such as Burger King & Applebee’s. Sara Lee lured Chris back to his hometown of Chicago as a Senior Executive Chef in the winter of 2005. And in 2014 through the acquisition of Hillshire Brand by Tyson is a Tyson Team member leading the Foodservice Culinary Strategy & Execution team. Chris’s other non-food based obsessions are his two sons (Jack & Luke), guitars & music and a rare form of fly-fishing from Japan called Tenkara. Live & Eat well.

Natalie Shmulik is the CEO of The Hatchery Chicago, a premier, non-profit food and beverage incubator on the West Side of Chicago. Natalie has an MLA in Gastronomy and over 10 year of experience in the food and beverage space ranging from owning and operating her own restaurant, consulting for supermarket chains, cookbook publishing, marketing and social media and food business incubation. Natalie specializes in trend forecasting as well as brand strategy for startups.

Vickie L. Kloeris recently retired from NASA where she worked in space food systems for a total of 33 years. Her last position was manager of the International Space Station Food System. In this position she served as technical manager for the NASA contract that produces food for the International Space Station (ISS) crews. Ms. Kloeris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science degree in Food Science and Technology, also from Texas A&M. She began her career at NASA in 1985 as a contractor working on space food systems. She became a NASA employee in 1989 and has 29 years of experience as a civil servant manager of space food systems including both the Shuttle and the International Space Station. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications regarding space food and has received several awards including the Johnson Space Center Director’s Commendation Award and has twice received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. She was recently given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at her alma mater, Texas A&M University. Ms. Kloeris is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the professional organization for food scientists, and has obtained their designation of Certified Food Scientist. She was recently elected to the Board of Directors of IFT for a 3 year term that began in September of 2017.

Reggie Moore is a sales and marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience in the food and beverage industry. Currently, he serves as the senior vice president of sales, marketing & innovation at Land O’Frost, one of the nation’s best-selling brands of pre-sliced deli meats and a producer of specialty sausage products. In this role, Moore is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of strategies that support the company’s business goals and growth initiatives. Since joining Land O’Frost in 2016, Moore has spearheaded the company’s reimagined brand and marketing strategy and played a major role in driving forward its strategic growth plans. Most recently, he led the launch of the company’s first-ever national advertising campaign for Land O’Frost Premium Sliced Meats. Additionally, Moore is heading the debut of Gone Rogue® High Protein Chips, a ground-breaking new brand that uses a unique, proprietary process to transform high-quality cuts of meat into a crunchy, shelf-stable chip. Prior to joining Land O’ Frost, Moore was the vice president of sales and marketing at Cargill. He’s also held leadership positions at other leading food companies including Tate & Lyle, Hillshire Farm, Conagra Brands and PepsiCo. Moore holds a Bachelor of Arts in marketing from Morehouse College and a Master of Business Administration in marketing from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

As a food innovator, Amy’s experience and successes sit at the crossroads of food, strategy, and brand to develop market performing products and scalable businesses. Amy has spent the last 15 years, in the food industry, leading innovation and product development teams in both the food service, meal kit and CPG channels. Amy’s career is focused on new to this world approaches to solving ever evolving consumer needs, with an eye to emerging agricultural and processing technologies while delivering products that delight. She has had the opportunity to collaborate with many big players in the food world, i.e. the Mars Global Innovation Group, Dannon, McCormick’s, Stoneyfield, Heinz, Organic Valley, and Panera Bread. Currently, Amy heads up the Product Development group for SpoonfulOne, a start-up creating new food products focused on food allergy prevention so children and families can eat freely and without fear. SpoonfulOne is the only “po Previous to Before Brands, as the Founding Executive Chef and VP of Innovation Projects at Revolution Foods, Amy joined the co-founders and set out to disrupt the status quo in the $18 billion school food service marketplace. As a member of the executive team, Amy lead a cross functional team who created a new food platform for the industry. With Amy’s pursuit of culinary excellence and business acumen, Revolution Foods has delivered access to kid-inspired, chef-crafted meals nation-wide and achieved rapid growth with $150M in revenue. Outside the kitchen, she has extensive experience working with food leaders to identify how to create scalable sustainable food systems and was three times sent as a delegate to Slow Foods Terra Madre in Turin, Italy. Four years running, she hosted an officers class from the National Defense University, formally the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and received civilian accommodation for her work with them on scalable, safe and clean supply chain and nutrition. She attended culinary school at San Francisco’s Tante Marie’s in North Beach and worked in fine dining, most notably at Insalata’s restaurant in Marin County. She ran a successful catering business for three years and was a chef instructor at Sur La Table, Copia, and Parties that Cook. She has a BA from Lewis and Clark College in English Literature.

Dan has been working in the food industry for over 25 years, starting in the trenches at Starbucks where he developed his deep love of good coffee and strong desire to work regular hours. He then managed to annoy his way into an internship at Mattson, the nation’s premier food product development firm, where they kept him and let him make things for over 11 years. While at Mattson he was featured in the 2005 Malcom Gladwell New Yorker article “The Bakeoff”. He was lured away from Mattson by Windsor Foods in Hayward to lead part of the product development team for frozen Asian meals and appetizers. Since he always has felt that he should be in charge, he jumped at the chance to prove it at La Terra Fina, a fast growing, premium brand currently placed in the deli category with dips and quiche leading their portfolio. This is where he and his small team do product innovation and renovation. During his tenure at La Terra Fina sales have tripled and they have successfully launched over 20 new products that account for a significant percentage of that growth.