An impressive line-up of key note speakers has been assembled for the ‘Innovation for Sustainable Growth’ Conference and Exhibition to be held on Wednesday, September 10th at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. The event will connect key stakeholders in the food and beverage manufacturing, retail and food service industries in Ireland.
The keynote speakers have been selected because of their proven track records in successfully creating, building, managing, operating and marketing sustainable food and beverage brands, both domestically and internationally.
For example, business entrepreneur John Teeling (pictured right) has been successful in building from scratch an international company with global brands, having founded Cooley Distillery in 1985 before selling the business to US spirits group Beam for $95 million in 2011. John Teeling’s latest business venture, Irish Whiskey Company, is now planning to spend Eur35 million over the next four years transforming the Great Northern Brewery site in Dundalk into a distillery.
Another speaker with impressive management credentials is Caroline Keeling, chief executive of Keelings Group. Since taking over the Keelings fruit production and food distribution business in 2006, Caroline Keeling has increased the company’s turnover by 50% to Eur300 million, and extended the brand to include five divisions, with operations in the UK, Europe and Asia.
Another key note speaker, Bord Bia chairman Michael Carey has a wealth of entrepreneurial experience and expertise gained from working within the Irish and UK food industries at companies including Kellogg’s (UK/Ireland), Fox’s Biscuits and Evian/Volvic before establishing Jacob Fruitfield (now part of Valeo Foods) in 2002. Michael Carey is currently executive chairman of The Company of Food, which offers a diverse combination of food industry strategic, commercial, branding and operating experience, and partners with companies to help them develop focused revenue and profit growth strategies.
Also speaking at the conference is Kathryn Costello, operations director of Bewley’s – Ireland’s market leading coffee and tea company. She has been instrumental in the development and leadership of Bewley’s sustainability programmes which are integrated across the entire organisation. This is underpinned by a company-wide commitment to ethical trading, environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility. Bewley’s has major coffee roasting, tea blending and distribution operations in Ireland, the UK and the United States.
Bewley’s is a carbon neutral company operating to the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System and the ISO 14064-1 standard for independent carbon verification. Bewley’s also participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project and is a recognised industry leader in carbon reduction. Bewley’s Sustainability Plan was verified to Origin Green standard in 2013 and this was successfully retained in 2014.
