Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted to Katie Chesney, Head of Marketing EMEA of The One Group, who moved  from restaurant management to marketing the STK Steakhouse group of restaurants in EMEA.

Our friend James Haywood from OpenKitchen made part of our interview into a short podcast  where you can exclusively hear Katie’s views on hospitality, working as a women in the food industry and advice to people wanting to move into restaurant marketing.

In the fifth of our series of Female Food Founders interviews we were delighted to interview Renée Elliott who had a mission to push organic and natural food out of the niche it was in back in 1995.  Planet Organic is now the UK’s largest fully certified organic supermarket and sells over 8,000 product lines in eight stores within the M25.  Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Renée  about changes in the organic market since the mid nineties, her inspirations and that tricky definition of sustainability.

With the move towards plant-based food is there a future for steakhouses? Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted to Katie Chesney, Head of Marketing EMEA of The One Group, who moved from  from restaurant management to marketing the STK Steakhouse group of restaurants in EMEA. Katie shared how she moved into the hospitality world, STK’s relationship with farmers, her favourite dishes on the menu and her views on some of the issues facing women in the food industry.

In the fourth of our series of Female Food Founders interviews we turn to ice cream, as summer is finally here. Also with the Allergy and Free From Show taking place in London, we met Cecily Mills founder of Coconuts Organic, dairy free ice cream.  Cecily’s ice cream secured two investment offers from Dragon’s Den. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, chatted with Cecily about about dairy-free, Dragons and driving sales in Tesco.

Our co-founder, Janie Ash, spoke to Chef Patron, Stosie Madi from The Parkers Arms about her being the only woman in the north of England to win a place in the Estrella National Restaurant Awards Top 100. Our friend James Haywood from OpenKitchen made part of our interview into a short podcast  where you can exclusively hear Stosie’s views on working as a women in the food industry and why we need more female role models in food.

July 2019 saw the 10th anniversary of Imbibe Live, one of the UK’s biggest on-trade events for the drinks and hospitality industry. Attracting thousands of visitors each year to Olympia London, our co-founder Mecca Ibrahim went along, keen to discover the latest trends.  She didn’t quite expect to see that the future of the drinks would mean less alcohol, more sustainability and an industry catering to future drinkers looking to get their kicks less intoxicating ways.

The UK’s biggest food book, writing and media awards took place on 27 June 2019 as the Guild of Food Writers Awards Ceremony and Party celebrated all that was great in food writing and media. Guild president Orlando Murrin and vice-president Felicity Cloake were the presenters and our co-founder Mecca Ibrahim (who has recently become a member of The Guild) was delighted to attend. Here’s her report of the night with a summary of which women did exceptionally well.

Celebrating winning a place in the Estrella National Restaurant Awards Top 100 and being the only woman in the north of England to win, our co-founder, Janie, chatted to Chef Patron, Stosie Madi from The Parkers Arms about what that feels like. Stosie shared her inspirations, style of cooking, passions, what it’s like to run a business and her views on issues facing women in the food industry.