Board Members
JOHN WEBSTER – BEc, GAICD.
John Webster is the inaugural Independent Chair of the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre and was integral to the success of the bid. He has provided leadership throughout the bidding and FFW CRC establishment process and has kept a strong focus on industry impacts and good governance. John has extensive experience in issues surrounding both food waste and management of complex industry/research collaborations. His expertise includes strategy, governance, leadership, performance measurement, R&D project management, business and commercialisation in the food, agribusiness and food waste sectors.
John is a former CEO of Foodbank Australia, MD of Horticulture Australia, and GM of Meat & Livestock Australia. He is currently a Director of AgStrat Associates and Council Member of the International Meat Research 3G Foundation. His qualifications include a degree in Economics and he is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
TOINE TIMMERMANS – MSc (AgEng).
Toine Timmermans is a global leader in food waste management and the FFW CRC’s key connection to international food waste initiatives. He was an integral component of the successful bid, as remarked by the CRC Advisory Committee, and has since been indispensable to the establishment of the R&D portfolio. He is active globally in creating impact on food waste prevention via research, innovation and establishing partnerships.
Toine is currently the Program Manager of Sustainable Food Chains at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands, the Coordinator of the European Union food waste project REFRESH, and the Managing Director of the Foundation United Against Food Waste. The overall aim of the REFRESH project is to halve food loss and food waste across the post-harvest supply chain. His qualifications include an MSc in Agricultural Engineering and post-graduate studies in Business Strategy.
SANDRA HOOK – AGSM Management courses, GAICD.
Sandra has a track record in driving customer-centred business transformation and transitioning traditional organisations in rapidly evolving environments. She has extensive operational, digital, financial management and strategic experience built over 25 years as a CEO and in senior executive roles for some of Australia’s largest media companies including News Limited, Foxtel, Federal Publishing Company, Murdoch Magazines and Fairfax.
Ms Hook holds directorships of other companies including: RXP Services (ASX:RXP), MedAdvisor Limited (ASX:MDR), IVE Group Limited (ASX:IGL), Sydney Fish Markets, WYZA Limited, Royal Botanic Gardens and Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.
GEOFF STARR – BA Hons, GAICD.
Geoff Starr has a wealth of experience in international branded foods and is a well-known figure in Australia’s agriculture and food industry.
Geoff has worked for Unilever, been CEO for Mars Inc. companies internationally and George Weston foods. He has run very large businesses and also enjoyed the involvement in smaller enterprises.
Geoff was chair of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Australia’s first industry advocate to government, and is a director of Foodbank, Australian Pork Ltd, Food Innovation Australia Ltd, Birch & Waite foods and chair of Cannpal Therapeutics.
ROBBIE DAVIS - BAgSc, MBA, GAICD.
Robbie Davis has business experience in both the private and public sectors domestically and internationally. As a former CEO of Potatoes South Australia Inc, she has a strong understanding of whole of industry value chains and the critical need to reduce and transform food waste to enable productivity gains, increase sustainability and enhance the reputation of Australian agriculture. She also believes that R&D programs across agricultural sectors and value chains are vital to Australia attaining its $100b production target by 2030. Following ten years living and working in SE Asia, she was self-employed as an agribusiness consultant and continues to consult privately. She was a member of the CRC Bid Advisory Committee and also operates a grazing property in the upper SE of South Australia.
Robbie’s qualifications include a Bachelor of Agricultural Science and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Adelaide, and she is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
She was profiled under PIRSA’s Women Influencing Agriculture and Regions in 2015, is the AgriFutures 2016 SA Rural Woman of the Year and is a graduate of the NFF’s Diversity in Agriculture Leadership Program 2019.
Currently, she is a Director of Invasive Animals Ltd, a member of Rural Bank’s Agribusiness Advisory Board and a member of the Limestone Coast Landscape Board.
CHRISTINE GIULIANO – BAppSc, GAICD.
Christine has over 25 years’ experience in Australia’s food and nutrition manufacturing sectors with a demonstrated history of transforming businesses by driving profitable sales, directing sector leading innovation, and demonstrating a commitment to delivering for customers. Christine is the ANZ General Manager and Commercial Lead for The Kerry Group, . Headquartered in Ireland (KYGA LON) Kerry is the global leader in the development of taste and nutrition solutions for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets. Prior positions have included Chief Operating Officer at Nature’s Care (Australia’s third largest vitamins company), Managing Director at Naturex Australia, a significant processor of functional food ingredients and botanical extracts, and Managing Director of KF Specialty Ingredients (previously known as Kingfood Australia).
Christine maintains strong technical, commercial and senior management competencies across the Food and Beverage, Health and Wellness, Complementary Medicines (inc TGA) and Personal Care markets, as well as having extensive commodity and industrial expertise in the various Manufacturing sectors and Sustainable ingredient sourcing supply.
Christine holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Food and Nutrition and is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST), and an active member of Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA).
ALAIN PILLAY – BEc, BBus, CPA, GAICD.
Alain Pillay is the managing director of Nexus Strategem Pty Ltd, a boutique financial and economic advisory firm specialising in corporate strategy and M&A. Since 2011 Nexus has been involved in acquisitions across the sugar, beef, port and technology sectors.
Prior to establishing Nexus, Alain was the Queensland state lead partner for Deloitte’s economics and strategy unit and was responsible for establishing and building the practice into one of the largest economic groups in Queensland. A member of Deloitte’s young leaders group and a member of Deloitte economics executive team, Alain worked extensively across Asia, Middle East and America.
Alain has a strong investment network both domestically and internationally and has experience in corporate governance as a company secretary of a listed company. Alain is tertiary qualified in both accounting and economics and is a member of the Australian CPA’s, Institute of Company Directors and Chartered Secretaries of Australia.
Delivery Team
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Dr Steven Lapidge
Dr Steven Lapidge is the creator and CEO of Fight Food Waste Ltd, which incorporates the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and Stop Food Waste Australia. His career has focussed on industry-based science and commercialisation across the wildlife management, agri-food production and sustainability fields. His qualifications include a PhD and an MBA. He is a Fulbright Professional Business/Industry Fellow, a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and European Summer School for Advanced Management (Denmark), and a Professional Member and former Non-Executive Director of the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology.
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Geoff Crook
Geoff came to Australia over 20 years ago from the UK and in that time has held a number of senior finance roles in the R&D investment space. Geoff has significant CRC experience following roles with the CRC for an Internationally Competitive Pork Industry, the CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork, and CRC legacy vehicle, Australiasian Pork Research Institute Ltd.
COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Sarah Fitzharris
Sarah Fitzharris is a seasoned marketing and communications professional with over 20 years of experience. Throughout Sarah’s career, she has held marketing and communications positions mainly within the not-for-profit or government sectors. Some of the organisations she has worked with include the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, SA Metropolitan Fire Service, SA Ambulance Service and most recently Disaster Relief Australia (DRA).
As General Manager, Marketing & Communications at DRA, Sarah played a major role in the organisation’s growth, community engagement and volunteer recruitment after they rebranded in 2020 and was part of the project team responsible for securing significant Federal Government funding as part of the 2022 election to build on its capacity to conduct disaster resilience, recovery and relief operations and related community projects. She has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in marketing and communications, media, government and stakeholder relations, crisis communications, and brand and reputation management.
Research Systems Manager
Dr Melanie Hand (University of Adelaide)
Melanie brings to the FFW CRC her love of data, and experience in supporting the implementation and operation of IT systems. Her previous role within the University of Adelaide was supporting the Career and Research Skills Training program; a specialised training and development program for PhD students. Melanie is PhD trained in the area of plant molecular genetics, and was a student of the Dairy Futures CRC. Prior to moving into systems management, Melanie worked for the state government of Victoria and CSIRO on industry and philanthropy-funded research projects.
Special Advisor - Food Waste
Mark Barthel
Mark joined the FFW CRC team in July 2019. Mark is a highly motivated and experienced business and sustainability professional with strong leadership, communications and negotiating skills and a successful 25-year track record of driving sustainable innovation in agri-food; and supporting the development and implementation of sustainable food systems. This includes over 15 years’ experience in quantifying and preventing food loss and waste in the UK, Europe, North and South America, Africa and Australia. This body of work has involved: developing the international evidence base for food loss and waste; national baseline development (volumetric, compositional and behavioural); strategy development and the annual tracking of progress at corporate, sectoral and national levels; establishing world-leading public/private sector voluntary agreements to reduce food waste, redistribute surplus food to those in need and support food waste valorisation; running award winning consumer-facing behaviour change campaigns; and implementing over 50 research and innovation projects with food and drink companies and their trade bodies. Marks qualifications include a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Science and an MSc in Integrated Environmental Studies. Before working on environmental and sustainability issues, Mark’s roots were in the international finance: covering foreign exchange and commodities markets and fraud and anti-fraud programs.
Theme Leader - Food Safety and Integrity
Dr Valeria Torok (PIRSA)
Dr. Valeria Torok is the Fight Food Waste CRC Food Safety and Integrity Theme Leader. She is also the Food Microbiology Sub-Program Leader with the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), Food Sciences Group based at the Waite Campus in Adelaide. Dr. Torok has a keen interest in food safety research, functional foods and the role of gut microbiota in livestock production and gut health. She also has product development interests in the creation of novel, rapid and sensitive diagnostics for foodborne hazards and foodborne virology. Her team has been instrumental in providing Australian capability for foodborne virus testing in foods implicated in recent foodborne outbreaks. Within the FFW CRC Valeria will ensure that any ingredient, food or packaging products developed demonstrate the upmost food safety and integrity.
During her 20 year career Dr. Torok has worked closely with both industry and regulatory bodies, and has formed multidisciplinary scientific collaborations both nationally and internationally. Her qualifications include a BSc(Hons) and PhD.
Research Director
Dr Bryan Coad (University of Adelaide)
Dr Bryan Coad is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide. He has a PhD in Chemistry (University of British Columbia, Vancouver). Over his career, he has gained broad, multidisciplinary research experience on both academic and industry-linked projects. For four years, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the CRC for Polymers (CSIRO, Melbourne) and gained experience protecting intellectual property and engaging with industry stakeholders. After moving to the University of South Australia, he led an academic research group that was awarded a number of ARC and NHMRC research grants. Since moving to the University of Adelaide in 2017, he has been working with Professor Vincent Bulone on industry-linked research projects to turn agricultural products and waste biomass into high-value products such as smart, biodegradable food packaging materials. He currently serves as Vice-President of the Australasian Society for Biomaterials.
OFFICE MANAGER
Carolyn Eggart
Carolyn previously worked for OzHarvest for five years where she undertook a variety of roles, including driving the vans and seeing first-hand the enormity of the food waste issue. Carolyn also managed the charity partnership with Clipsal 500 where she managed an event with 20 of the top chefs of Adelaide who helped create 500 meals for people in need using rescued food. Most recently, she was in a business development role to increase food rescue with major supermarkets by educating them on food waste and the positive impact they can have on people in need and also the environment.
Prior to working with OzHarvest, Carolyn worked in advertising and events and has been known to be a bit of a ‘Jill of all Trades!’.
Program Leader - REDUCE
Associate Professor Simon Lockrey (RMIT University)
Associate Professor Simon Lockrey is the Reduce Program Leader. The domains in which Dr Lockrey has managed research include life cycle assessment (LCA), co-design, design innovation, marketing, resource efficiency, flammable cladding, automotive history, and food waste. As a result, he has generated millions of dollars of ‘industry facing’ Category 1, 2, 3 and 4 research, creating global impact through policy changes, commercial outcomes, media coverage, quality academic publications, and hundreds of citations. Dr Lockrey’s projects have required the deployment of sustainability strategy, tool development, and training for global and nationally significant companies, including CHEP, Visy, Nestlé, Lendlease, Costa, Grocon and Breville. Relevant government and NGO projects have also ensued, with Sustainability Victoria, Australian Fresh Produce Alliance, Australian Food and Grocery Council, Australia Post, Australian Antarctic Division, Uniting AgeWell, and Meat and Livestock Australia. On practice, his experience has been wide and varied for organisations such as Cyclone, Dyson, Whirlpool, Sabco, Sorbent, Novatech Controls, Schiavello, and Henkel, which has resulted in the generation of many billions of dollars in income and Intellectual Property (IP). Products he has designed have won Australian Design Awards, and the internationally recognized Red Dot Award. Simon is currently Executive Director of Glowpear, Vice President of Automotive Historians Australia, and sits on the board of International Sustainable Development Research Society.
Program Leader - ENGAGE
Prof David Pearson (Central Queensland University)
Professor David Pearson is the ENGAGE Program Leader in the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre. The Engage Program is responsible for educating over 40 future industry professionals with PhD or Master level qualifications, disseminating research outputs through an Industry Training Hub, and encouraging behaviour changes amongst consumers to reduce the amount of food wasted.
David Pearson’s research expertise is in leading multidisciplinary collaborations addressing issues of concern in society. Most recently this has focused on encouraging consumers to make considered choices, such as dietary options to improve personal health and contribute to a more environmentally sustainable global food system.
In addition, he has considerable leadership achievements in tertiary education as well as significant engagements with industry, government and charity sectors. He is a Professor of Marketing in the School of Business and Law, and the Appleton Institute, at the Sydney campus of Central Queensland University.
Program Leader - TRANSFORM
Francesca Goodman-Smith
Francesca brings research, policy and industry experience to her role as TRANSFORM Program Leader. Her research has focussed on food waste in consumer, retail and hospitality sectors of the food supply chain, including quantifying retail food waste in New Zealand. Prior to joining the CRC she worked as Waste Minimisation Manager for Foodstuffs NZ, New Zealand’s largest grocery retailer. In this role she solidified research and industry partnerships to understand the emerging sector of upcycled foods, where surplus and by-products are transformed into new food products.
Francesca works globally across the sector as the International Representative for the University of Otago Food Waste Research Theme in New Zealand and co-chair of the Standards Committee for the Upcycled Food Association in the USA.
Deputy Program Leader - REDUCE
Allister Hill (RMIT)
Allister has wide-ranging experience as a generalist researcher and applied anthropologist and is currently completing his PhD at RMIT University. As well as ethnographic research and indigenous heritage management, he has academic project and consumer/market research expertise, focusing on traditional and innovative qualitative and quantitative undertakings – including digital research and software development. Allister also brings to the role extensive research/project administration and reporting experience, not to mention the experience of working across multiple FMCG food research projects as a market researcher. Before becoming the REDUCE Deputy Program leader, Allister participated in numerous REDUCE projects as a core project researcher.
Deputy Program Leader - TRANSFORM
Molly Chapman (University of Queensland)
Molly brings valuable industry experience to the Fight Food Waste team having been in the waste-to-resource industry for more than eight. She has worked with agricultural, industrial food processing and municipal organic wastes. With qualifications in science and business and experience working as a technical consultant and in project management, she has the capability to recognise both the technical and commercial opportunities for food waste.
PROJECT MANAGER - ENGAGE
Dr Gamithri Karunasena (Central Queensland University)
Dr Gamithri Karunasena is a consumer behaviour specialist with extensive experience in marketing food projects. Her international experience includes marketing and branding with multinationals such as Nestle. She has co-authored numerous industry reports and academic journal articles on household food waste in Australia. Gamithri was Project Manager for the Household project and currently leads the Evaluation of Interventions project under the ENGAGE program. The Household and Evaluation of Interventions projects have formed Australia’s most comprehensive research around food behaviours and interventions to help reduce household food waste.
Gamithri has a PhD at University of New South Wales, an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, and first-class honors undergraduate degree in marketing from the University of Colombo. Gamithri is working as a research fellow in the School of Business and Law, at the Sydney campus of Central Queensland University.
Program Coordinator - REDUCE
Rhenette Cabanero (RMIT University)
Rhenette is the REDUCE Program Coordinator. She provides planning and policy advice and facilitates the successful implementation of initiatives and delivery of services and resources to support the REDUCE Program’s activities and goals. She gained extensive experience across multiple roles and industries in the education sector, not-for-profit, hospitality and international aid. In 2015, she was one of three Filipino recipients of the Australian government Endeavour scholarship, to pursue a Master of Development Studies at the University of Melbourne. Previously, she participated as one of the Philippine-Tohoku Goodwill Ambassadors of Japan’s disaster management and recovery program promoting Philippines-Japan bilateral relations, and served as President of the Senior Common Room and Council Member of Newman College, University of Melbourne. She looks forward to applying her skills to help reduce food waste in Australia, and to learn from the process.
Program Coordinator - TRANSFORM
Jessica Morgan (University of Queensland)
Jessica brings grants administration, stakeholder engagement and project management experience to her role as TRANSFORM Program Coordinator. Jessica is an experienced program manager having led the development and implementation of multi-million government grant programs including the $200 million Works for Queensland program and $60 million Local Government Grants and Subsidies Program, before moving into the Waste Recovery & Avoidance Program team within Department of Environment and Science. As Program Coordinator, she developed several programs supporting the implementation of the Queensland waste levy. She is completing postgraduate studies in Environmental Management.
Following a 15-year public service career, Jessica took a sabbatical to travel across Australia, living and working on permaculture farms and properties, and learning principles and practices involved in sustainable agriculture, circular economy, and resource recovery. She is passionate about reducing and transforming food waste, and supporting organisations at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to environmental issues.
Finance and Contracts Officer
Karen Fleming
Karen joined FFWL in July 2023 to support the finance and contracts function. She developed a focus on the non-profit sector while working at a Big 4 Chartered Accounting firm which included managing audits at several CRCs. She has broad accounting and reporting experience and is delighted to be joining the FFWL team.
Research Coordinator
Alison Hay (University of Adelaide)
Alison is the Research Coordinator and works part-time with Research Director Dr Bryan Coad. Her role is to assist with project management processes, and to provide additional support to the Research Systems Manager with the operational requirements of the shared project management platform.
South Australian Innovation Manager / MCM
Dr Jonathan Middis (PIRSA)
Jonathan has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Auckland University. He has years of experience in new product development spanning global food multinationals to local start-ups and has overseen the launch of more than a thousand products during that time. His work has focused primarily in beverages (coffee, juice), dairy (cheese) and produce, but spans nearly every aisle of the supermarket. More recently he has turned his hand to finding innovative solutions to create value-added functional products from food waste streams. He is great at finding solutions and getting stuff done, still believes that it is amazing what can happen over a cup of coffee and passionately avoids waste in all its forms.
Executive Assistant
Lauren Blyth
Lauren joined Fight Food Waste Limited in February 2022, following on from her most recent role as EA to the General Manager Business Support and Improvement at the City of Unley. She has international experience across the education, mining and automotive sectors.