Foodvalley Champions 2020: meet the jury

Innovation Manager Protein Shift at Foodvalley NL, influencing the future of protein, and supporting companies looking to make an impact in – and profit from – the business of sustainable proteins. Many know Jeroen as ‘the green protein commissioner of the Netherlands’. At Wageningen University & Research he developed novel protein extraction and texturing techniques. 2009 saw him co-found Ojah, producer of a revolutionary new generation of meat analogues. In 2016, Jeroen started the Green Protein Alliance and, one year later, Foodvalley’s Innovation and Business Network, The Protein Cluster. Both platforms continue to shape the European plant-protein ecosystem.

PJ Beers studies and supports sustainability transitions, especially in agriculture and food. He does so at HAS University of Applied Sciences as a lecturer on New Business Models for Agriculture and Food Transition, and at DRIFT (Dutch Research Institute for Transitions), based at the Erasmus University, as a researcher and consultant. PJ has been chairman of the Green Protein Alliance for several months now.

Food innovation strategist Femke Mosch (Vision on Food) helps food companies develop a strategy and vision for their product portfolios. With broad experience in the food sector for start-ups, scale-ups and established businesses Femke knows the food sector inside out. She believes the combination of consumer thinking, culture and values, significantly enhances the chance of a successful product or concept. The results of Femke’s innovation projects are to be found on the shelves of your local supermarket; every day, a large proportion of Netherlands’ shoppers put a Vision on Food product in their basket.

Paula Rijkens is Innovation Manager Circular AgriFood at Foodvalley NL, where her task is to stimulate the transition to a sustainable, circular food system; one without waste and with a good business model for all links in the chain. With many years of experience in sales and purchasing at multinationals and SMEs, Paula has been a project leader in education (HAS University of Applied Sciences) and government (Province of North Brabant) guiding innovation projects in the fields of residual flow evaluation, food processing and protein transition.

As Managing Director of vanRijsingengreen, Gerbrand van Veldhuizen is committed to the complete valorization of vegetable products. Convinced that there are still major steps to be taken in circularity in the vegetable sector, he sees the key advances coming from making optimal use of content with fewer resources and maximizing yield with minimal impact on the earth. Not surprisingly, these will be his most-important criteria when assessing entries for the Foodvalley Champions.

Carin van Huët-Laan has worked at Rabobank since 2010, first as Managing Director, then as Chairman of the Board of several local banks and Regional Delegates Assembly Director for Southwest Netherlands.  She has been Head of Sector Management Business Clients, and Director Food & Agri Netherlands since 2018. As Head of Sector Management Business Clients, she focuses on the strategy, financing and risk management of individual companies in all sectors. Together with her Food & Agri, Trade, Industry, Services, Healthcare, and Real Estate finance teams she envisages the major transition issues in these sectors and brings these into critical conversations with clients and trade organizations in the Netherlands, with the aim of creating societal impact.

Judith van der Horst is Innovation Manager Food & Health at Foodvalley NL and focuses on connecting knowledge, innovation and business in the domain of Food & Health. After obtaining her PhD, she worked for nearly 12 years in R&D at food industry multinationals. Judith continued her career as R&D Manager of Wageningen Food & Biobased Research. She was appointed Theme Director Food & Health for Applied Research by the TKI Top Sector Agri & Food and, in 2018, she became Manager Operations of Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation.

Iris Bogers studied International Business Communications at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Her career began with various marketing positions at a number of organizations and later as a consultant at Berenschot. She is currently employed by health insurer Menzis, where she is Strategic Product and Proposition Manager. From an organization-wide perspective she creates value by identifying which of the latest market developments have real potential and translating them into new products and services. She is working on Menzis’ online program SamenGezond aimed at facilitating sustainable lifestyle changes. SamenGezond stimulates people to lead a healthy lifestyle and helps them to make healthy choices. www.samengezond.nl

Chantal Goenee's passion is to help consumers make more healthy and sustainable choices. She has studied health sciences and consumer behavior in Wageningen and is currently part of the Corporate Social Responsibility team at Lidl Netherlands. The mission of Lidl is to make sustainability and a healthy lifestyle affordable and accessible to everyone. Chantal and her colleagues approach this in many ways: from selling the best quality fruits and vegetables for the lowest prices to reducing sugar, saturated fat and salt in their products and introducing novel and healthy product innovations. She is delighted to be on the Food & Health jury and is looking forward to meeting the Foodvalley nominees.