Tom Hunt is an award-winning eco-chef, food sustainability consultant, and Guardian columnist dedicated to transforming the way we eat for the better. With over 25 years of experience in sustainable food systems, Tom has worked with leading brands, restaurants, and organizations to design waste out of the food industry and promote regenerative farming.
As the founder of the multi-award-winning zero-waste restaurant Poco in Bristol and London, Tom has pioneered practical sustainability solutions that reduce food waste, improve sourcing, and enhance profitability for hospitality businesses. His Root to Fruit food philosophy—eating for pleasure, planet, and health—underpins his consultancy work, which helps food businesses implement circular, climate-friendly practices. Passionate about food education, Tom collaborates with initiatives like the National Farmers Union’s school farming project to inspire the next generation to cook with fresh, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients.
Elisabeth Luard, is a food-writer and illustrator who’s been writing for forty years. She has lived and worked in Latin America, Spain, Italy and France and brought up her young family in a remote valley in Andalucia.
Among her more than 20 books are European Peasant Cookery, The Flavours of Andalucia, My Life as a Wife, and Squirrel Pie (and Other Stories). Recipient of many awards, including a Glenfiddich Award for Outstanding Food Writing, the Gourmand World Cookbook Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guild of Food Writers, Elisabeth now lives in West London and writes Cookstory, as well as a regular column in The Oldie. She hosted a 13 part video series, The Rich Tradition of Peasant Cookery.
Yeshi Jampa grew up in rural Tibet, herding livestock on the high reaches of the plateau and learning to cook inside a yak hair tent at a young age. When he was nineteen, Yeshi walked across the Himalayas to northern India, where he lived for many years.
Julie Kleeman studied Chinese at Cambridge University and has been travelling and eating in Asia since 1992. She lived in Beijing for many years, where she worked as the Chief Editor of the Oxford Chinese Dictionary.
Julie and Yeshi met in India, fell in love, and moved to Oxford. Together they own and run the Oxford-based Taste Tibet restaurant and festival food stall, a Guardian and BBC Good Food Top Ten pick, and a finalist in the Best Street Food or Takeaway category in the 2021 BBC Food and Farming Awards. Julie and Yeshi share a passion for food and wellbeing, and have made it their mission to get Tibet on the global food map.
Dee Woods is the Young Chef Mentor for 2026.
Dee Woods is an award winning food system leader and celebrated nomadic cook in the kitchen of food sovereignty. A passionate knowledge broker, ideator, pollinator and weaver who advocates for good food for all and a just food system. Her work meets at the nexus of human rights, food justice, agroecology, community, policy, decolonial research, reparations, culture, climate, healing and social justice.
Dee’s work is grounded in Afrodescendant ways of being and knowing, Yoruba spirituality and Black feminist praxis, centering care, radical love and joy.
Dee wears many headwraps including being a director of the Landworkers Alliance and the U.K. representative of La Via Campesina. She is a member of the Land in Our Names collective (LION) and co-founder of both the African and Caribbean Heritage Food Network and the Granville Community Kitchen in London.
