Mark is a Research Director at Toluna, with responsibility for providing clients with recommendations on project design, analysis & reporting, ensuring the overall quality of work meets the high standards expected.​ Mark works with a diverse range of clients across the consumer-packaged goods sector, including in the beverages category.  Mark joined Toluna 6 years ago, having spent the rest of his prior career in client-side research roles so he brings a real client-side perspective to any projects he leads.

With 25 years of experience at the forefront of Global sales, marketing, and business development for Beverage, Dairy, Bakery, Confectionery, Food Ingredients, Food Flavours, Food Service FMCG / Private Label, Retail, HIS (High Intensity Sweeteners) Next generation Natural Sweeteners, Natural Flavours. Using pioneering and exciting new technologies to produce sustainable F&B taste solutions Sweegen is your preferred partner to work with. 

Luke Boase is the founder of Lucky Saint, the UK’s award-winning 0.5% Superior Unfiltered Lager. The brand launched in October 2018, however the story of creating this exceptional alcohol-free beer started much, much, earlier.

Way back in 1842, in the city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic, a revolution happened. Following years of sub-standard beer, a group of residents undertook to brew their own beer. That beer was unlike any beer-style that had been brewed before: golden in colour, crisp, dry and refreshing. Pilsner was born. And it has gone on to influence 80% of the beer we drink today, what we know as lager.

Fast forward to 2016, and the world has a drinking problem. So Luke had a thought: what if all the occasions on which he drank lager, could come with... or without alcohol?

Even in 2016, this was an unlikely idea. While alcohol-free beer was nothing new, it had never gained wide appeal. But against the advice of many, including one particular industry leader who suggested making fizzy sodas would be a better idea, he set out to discover just how hard it would be to brew a great tasting alcohol-free lager. And then build a brand that would empower people to drink it.

He spent the next two years working with six different brewers in three different countries, with this singular mission in mind. Ultimately joining forces with a 400 year old brewery in Bavaria who shared his passion for brewing beer of the highest quality.

Lucky Saint is a 0.5% Superior Unfiltered Lager. It’s brewed in accordance with German Purity Law, Reinheitsgebot, using the four natural ingredients you are supposed to find in a classic pilsner: Bavarian spring water, pilsner malt, Hallertau hops, single use yeast. That’s it, there’s no flavourings, no additives, no adjuncts. It is fermented for two weeks, and cold stored (or ‘lagered’) for a further four weeks, just like that original pilsner in 1842. And then it’s left unfiltered to retain as much flavour and character as possible. They call it heritage brewing for modern drinking.

Lucky Saint launched in October 2018 and has achieved wide success. It is listed leading on-trade accounts including 30 Michelin starred restaurants, some of the best bars in the world and some of the most brilliant local pubs. It is regularly voted the best alcohol-free lager, it was welcomed as the British Beer and Pub Association’s first alcohol free member and is on the journey to be accredited as a B-corporation.

Luke is driven by an entrepreneurial, and sometimes obsessive, curiosity for solving problems. Having worked across a range of industries from advertising, through fund management to oil & gas, solving the world’s drinking problem became that obsession in 2016. He lives in London with his wife and two young daughters.

Emma is Managing Director of Lucky Saint, the multi-award winning 0.5% superior unfiltered lager listed in +2500 bars/pubs and restaurants across the UK in bottle and on draught. Emma has worked in consumer goods for 20 years across Europe and Africa: in the blue chips of Tesco and Diageo, and grown fledgling brands into household names such as innocent and Graze. It is the gritty challenging world of scaling start-ups that Emma loves and the reason she joined founder of Lucky Saint Luke Boase as MD in February 2020. Emma has 2 young girls and is a passionate advocate of championing women in industry: as an Ambassador for Retail Week’s Be Inspired programme and Steering Group Member for The Grocery Girls.

Michael Brennan is a Consumer and Shopper Insights Manager at HEINEKEN, working on research within the business related to the Beer category and the off-trade.

Stefano
Pistoni, Senior Manager, Business Development in Wine, Spirits & Beverage, EMEIA region at UPM Raflatac. With more than 25 years of experience in the packaging industry, in his role he sees himself as a privileged spectator of the packaging and design community.
Stefano
collaborates with the global wine and spirits brands and most prestigious packaging design agencies. Over the years he has collaborated in several projects related to sustainability and circular economy, such as ”Project RafCycle”, and he is collaborating with "Circular Wine" platform in Italy, and IED Istituto Europeo del Design.

Valérie Vandaele is the Beverage and Confectionery Technical Manager for Europe at Tate & Lyle. Valérie has strong expertise of sweeteners and fibres and, with her team, constantly puts the focus on customers, to better serve them and develop professional solutions for sugar reduction, clean label and healthy products with Tate and Lyle ingredient solutions.

Valerie joined Tate & Lyle 11 years ago and has experience across different technical functions within the food industry in France. Valerie holds a MS in food science and engineering from JUNIA - University of Lille, France.

Hans van Bochove, VP Public affairs and Government Relations at Coca Cola is a key opinion leader in the beverage industry, amongst his responsibilities is the company’s packaging and recycling policy. He joined the Coca-Cola system in 1998 serving as Director Public Affairs and Communications in The Netherlands for nine years. From 2007 to 2011, Hans was Director Public Affairs, Communications and CSR at Starbucks Coffee Company for the Europe, Middle-East and Africa region. He then returned to Coca-Cola in his current role and since March 2017 also serves as Chairman of the European Organization for Packaging and Environment (EUROPEN).

Charlotte Spitzner is a Flavour Research Analyst at
Synergy
Flavours, performing extraction and analysis on flavours, foods and drinks. Charlotte uses a large variety of analytical tools and equipment to identify and quantify individual flavour compounds making up an aroma and gaining insights into the complexity of flavour which can then help the Flavour Creation team to create the best flavours possible. Within large-scale research projects, Charlotte also investigates more complex areas of interest like shelf life or taste compounds in a variety of different applications and products. The outputs of such research ensure that
Synergy
stays ahead of the competition and can satisfy customers demand for market leading flavour solutions.

Vicky Berry is the Senior European Business Development Manager at Synergy Flavours, leading business development for the beverage and nutrition markets. Vicky has been at the forefront of Synergy’s innovation pipeline, providing the latest market insights to support future focus areas and developments. Working with colleagues across geographies, Vicky has a key role in the expansion of Synergy’s natural extracts and essences platform which includes the latest product launches; Inspiring Fruits and Hop essences. An important function of the position is collaborating closely with customers, providing market insights and trends to help them stay one step ahead of the competition.

Jill is the Applications Manager at Synergy Flavours, heading up a team of application technologists working across multiple categories.

Jill has a love of food and drink, with a focus on taste and flavour. She studied Food Science at the University of Leeds and started work in the food industry in 2002 at what was then Cadbury Schweppes. She was fascinated by flavours and started her career in the flavour industry in 2003.

Within the flavour industry Jill has worked as an applications technologist across the sweet and beverage categories, developing a real passion for beverage. After extensive training in the area, the focus of her work has been on beverages since 2008.

Jill joined Synergy Flavours in 2019 and she loves to collaborate on beverage projects with our customers.

Aside from food and drink, Jill loves sport, having played hockey for many years. She is now heavily involved in the junior hockey at her club.

With over 15 years of Sales & Marketing experience, in 2017, as a result of an innovative project awarded by MBA Executive of the MIP Politecnico di Milano, Eugenio launches MeMento, the first Mediterranean Distilled Non-Alcoholic Blend designed to be mixed in cocktails.

Eugenio is an active member of the Low and No ABV community, and with his brand participates as a speaker to the mist influential world industry summits.

Following 5 years with The Nielsen Company, Mark has spent the last 12 years working for Coca-Cola European partners in a number of different roles including Strategy & Insights, Category, Shopper Marketing and Revenue Growth Management. More recently, Mark is Commercial Development Director looking after Category Management & Shopper activation across all channels