Food and Drink Engineering Committee

Retired

Martyn Ralph, is a recently retired, International Brewery Design Engineer.

He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, a member of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and a member of the Brewing Engineers Association. Martyn worked for large multinational brewers and consulting engineers on five continents, designing breweries and acting as Owner’s Representative on multi-million dollar projects. He is a specialist in managing projects in third-world and developing countries.

His skills as a brewery engineer have also been used in the hygienic, non-brewing sectors, such as Dairy Processing, Baby Foods, Soft Drinks, Food, Toiletries and Polymers.

Martyn also worked as a Consultant for Micro-brewery owners including the Little Creatures and Mikkeller Breweries in London.

Keith Brewood is a specialist consultant to the food industry.

Keith is a Chartered Engineer and also a Member of the Institute of Food Science & Technology and a professional member of the Institute of Food Technology. Keith has a wide knowledge of the Food Industry gained from designing and building food factories worldwide to product and process development bringing new products to market. Keith has operated and managed food businesses at a senior level in technical, operational, commercial, marketing and CEO capacities.

Keith is a founding member of the British Contract Manufacturers & Packers Association.

Bill is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist. Bill has a wide range of experience of energy, utility and process projects from the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Bill has previously served on the IMechE's Pharmaceutical Committee.

Managing Director, ValuPoint Ltd

A global supply chain director with 22 years' experience in operations and implementing multi-site lean programs in the CPG and beverage sectors.

Ed worked at Unilever for 9-years in various operations roles before joining SABMiller as Plant Manager for the largest soft drinks facility in Africa. He subsequently held roles in capital projects, product development and as global operational excellence lead for SABMiller's 200+ facilities. When AB InBev acquired SABMiller in 2016, Ed joined the integration team to establish the new global supply function.

Ed holds a degree in mechanical engineering, an MSc in lean operations management, and has completed the PMI Project Management professional certification. 

Managing Director, Koolmill Systems Limited

Alec is a pioneering visionary engineer and innovator.

He is the inventor of a radical disruptive cereal processing technology, Koolmill which will l transform an antiquate global industry that feeds 3.5 billion people daily. Koolmill addresses 16 sustainable development goals by minimising post-harvest loss, moving the rice industry to a more sustainable future.

With three UK innovation awards, Alec was runner up at the AGInnovation Showcase (USA-2016). In China, Alec, designated as a national expert, is on the Global Foreign Expert Recruitment Program and was the only UK recipient of the West Lake Friendship Award for Foreign Experts (2010).

Koolmill competed with supercar brand McLaren to win the UKTI Sponsored GREAT British Product Award in Beijing (2014).

Saudi Goody Products Marketing Co Ltd

Manufacturing Performance Redefined

Chief Engineer, Cranswick Foods

Engineer, Element Digital Engineering

Reader, Imperial College Administration

Engineering Director, Briggs of Burton Plc

Willett Food Projects Ltd

Researcher - Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Food Refrigeration Operations,
London South Bank University

Judith has 30 years’ experience of working on food refrigeration operations throughout the food cold chain. Her main areas of interest are related to efficiency and energy reduction as well as design and performance of refrigeration equipment. More recently she has become involved in large scale energy storage using liquid air.

Judith is President of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) Commission C2 on Food Science and Engineering, Vce President of the CaRe (careers in refrigeration) working party and the cold chain in warmer climates working party. She is the UK's Institute of Refrigeration representative to the IIR and also an editor of the Journal of Food Engineering.

Procter and Gamble

Lecturer in Food Safety/Food Innovation, Greenwich University

Centre for Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Research, London South Bank University

Honorary research fellow, School of Food and Advanced Tech, Massey

Project Engineer, Central Engineering, Warburtons Ltd

Graduate in Mechanical Engineering

PepsiCo

DSEAR Business Manager, Dodman Ltd

Warburtons Ltd

Keith Thornhill is Head of Food and Beverage Automation for Siemens Digital Factory Division.

He started his career completing an apprenticeship with British Rail Engineering Ltd in Crewe and entered the automation industry in 1986. After key business manager roles. Keith joined Siemens in 2001 as a Business Development Manager in the Siemens Motion Control group and latterly as Siemens Food and Beverage Business Manager identifying the productivity, efficiency and production flexibility benefits that automation technology and the digital enterprise will deliver to the food and beverage sector

He is the Chairman of Industry Advisory Board for the National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering.

Associate Principal Engineer, Discovery & Disruption, PepsiCo International Limited, 
 

National Consultant Specialist UK & ROI, Spirax Sarco

Senior Lecturer, Engineering Group, Harper Adams University College, Newport

Retired/Consultant

After graduating in Agricultural Engineering (Design) David worked in product design and development of agricultural and construction machinery. He  then managed installation and maintenance of crop storage facilities.  This led to assignments in 25 countries.

David is currently with Reading Agricultural Consultants working with insurers and litigators in cases involving both agricultural machinery and crop stores

His observations of the impacts of inadequate crop storage led him to originate the IMechE report “Global Food, Waste Not, Want Not” published in 2013.