Our Team

CEO & Co-founder

A successful entrepreneur with 13 years of experience in FMCG and food and beverages.

Alex co-founded UK based chilled food business Scratch Meals Ltd in 2009 –

a business with UK and international distribution across a portfolio of brands and own label business.

In 2018, Alex joined the management team of EMMAC Life Sciences as Head of Wellness (Consumer Goods Division).

Through securing key private label partnerships with international retailers such as WBA and leading the business through the regulatory pathway for Novel Foods as well as steering a portfolio of brands, Alex helped grow the business which later sold to CuraLeaf in March 2021.

Technical Lead & Co-founder

Chris is a Professor of Bioprocess Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath.

Chris joined the Dept. in 2011 as a research fellow, becoming a Reader in 2016, and a full Professor in 2019.

Chris has published over 100 peer reviewed journal papers and patents in the area of sustainable alternative foods and bioproducts.

He has a strong record in research funding receiving over £23M in public/private funding.

Chris developed Clean Food Group’s proprietary technology and technology platform.

CFO & Co-founder

20 years of experience in senior finance and business roles in both start-ups and large multinationals.

Co-founder and CFO of EMMAC Life Sciences, a European medical cannabis start-up. Played a pivotal role in scaling the business, raising over $50m, and growing the business through M&A and organic investment to become Europe’s leading cannabis company. The business was acquired in March 2021 by CuraLeaf.

Tom spent 10 years at Royal Dutch Shell where he led a long-term divestment program for downstream businesses in Latin America and was responsible for driving the development of a new LNG into the transport business.

A Qualified Chartered Accountant.

CMO

Hannah is a proven business leader with a track record of delivering business growth through corporate positioning and market communication strategies worldwide. For the past 25 years Hannah has driven high impact, global marketing and corporate communication programmes across a broad range of industries, including, telecommunications, technology, pharmaceutical and not for profit organisations.

Most recently Hannah served as Chief Marketing Officer for EMMAC Life Sciences, leading the communications and marketing strategies to establish EMMAC as Europe’s leading cannabis company. The business was acquired in March 2021 by Curaleaf.

Co-chairman & Co-founder

An experienced capital markets professional with 18 years’ expertise in the management and financing of growth companies internationally.

Ed has been pivotal in raising over £750m in equity and debt for growth companies and is currently CEO of AIM quoted Seed Innovations Ltd, a VC that has a track record of successful investment in the tech and life sciences space.

Ed co-founded EMMAC Life Sciences, which raised over $50m in equity. As co- founder and member of the executive senior management team, Ed was pivotal in helping lead the business from start up to its eventual sale for $400m in March 2021.

Co-Chairman

Jim Mellon is an author, entrepreneur, and investor with interests in a number of sectors.

After leaving Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, he worked in Asia and the United States in two fund management companies, GT and Thornton, before establishing his own business in 1991. This business continues today, but Jim no longer works as a fund manager and is, instead, focused on biotech, clean food, and property, with other business interests managed by his family office, the Burnbrae Group.

Jim is Chairman and co-founder of Juvenescence, a non-executive director of Condor Gold, Portage Biotech Inc, Bradda Head Limited, Chelsea Avondale Limited, Agronomics Limited, and is executive Chairman of Manx Financial Group, which owns Conister Bank. Jim has written several books, including Wake Up!, Juvenescence, and Moo’s Law.

Non-Executive Director

Bill has over 35 years’ experience in the food industry managing family and publicly listed companies ranging in size from £50m to £1.3bn. With full P&L responsibility he has orchestrated mergers, acquisitions, turnarounds and developed significant growth in companies that have needed change. With an in-depth working knowledge of the food industry Bill was MD/Vice President of Dawn Foods, MD/Senior Vice President of CSM Bakery and Vice President of the Alshaya Group. Bill has personal knowledge of and senior contacts across the industry and our customer/supplier base.

Head of Manufacturing Technology

James is an industry leader in the field of fermentation, with over 27 years’ experience in microbial and cell culture. James’ previous experience includes senior operational roles at Croda, DuPont, Enough and Marlow Ingredients where he was responsible for £MM project delivery within fermentation and downstream processing as well as waste valorisation.

James has a proven track record in technology transfer of fermentation processes and products scaling up from laboratory through to production scale up to 300,000L.

At Clean Food Group, James is responsible for sustainable oils and fats production via submerged fermentation and the scale-up and technology transfer to pilot and commercial scale operations. James will also be supporting the R&D work and regulatory pathway for novel food production.

James is a chartered member of the IChemE (CEng MIChemE) with qualifications in health and safety and risk analysis (IOSH Managing Safely level 2, NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety Level 3, and RPHS HACCP Advanced Level 4). He is currently part of the IChemE Biochemical Engineering Special Interest Group Committee (BESIG) and member of the Institute of Food Science and Technology (MIFST)

Director of Food Science

Andrea has been a consultant to the food industry since 2018, advising companies on their research and innovation strategy and helping the translation of ideas into viable business plans.

Andrea has extensive experience as an executive in the food industry, with a 30 years career at Mars Global Chocolate, in a number of roles in the research & development and purchasing departments.

In the role of Director of Science he championed a global strategy to address the health & wellbeing issues facing the chocolate category and resulting in the launch of nutritionally improved versions of Mars iconic brands.

Andrea has centred his work around novel processes for improving the organoleptic properties of chocolate products, by improving key ingredients, cocoa beans, nuts, oils & fats, dairy, and integrating genetic, biochemistry, food structure, flavour and process research.

Andrea is particularly interested in addressing the sustainability issues and opportunities of the food system and recently obtained a certificate of Business Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge.

Manufacturing Technology Manager

Dr. Yogeshwar Chandelia holds a PhD (Fermentation science) and is an expert scientist in the field of fermentation, with years of experience in both industry and academia. He specialises in industrial microbiology, particularly in the scalable augmentation of yeast, fungal, and bacterial fermentation processes for diverse applications with sustainability being his top priority.

Having previously worked at prominent organisations like Diageo, ENOUGH and Kerry Food & Nutrition, Yogeshwar has an established track record of successfully delivering a range of projects. During his tenure, he specialised in process development & optimisation, and scale-up (1 L to 100 m3).

He has a robust background in biochemistry, process optimization, assay development, and project management (Prince2). His contribution has driven innovation and efficiency in fermentation processes across diverse industries.

Co-founder & Technical Advisor

Darren completed his PhD at Imperial College, investigating intracellular trafficking in mammalian cells and the African trypanosome. After completing his doctoral studies, Darren worked in the City of London for 2 years advising biotechnology and Internet companies on financial communication strategy as they sought initial public offering (IPO) on UK and European equity markets. He then returned to research, working on cell and gene therapy.

As an Associate Professor at UCL, Darren’s research is focused on the industrial application of synthetic biology for the re-design of living cells for improved upstream and downstream bioprocessing. His expertise is in the use of molecular biology, intracellular trafficking and protein engineering to design cells with useful functions that are also robust to industrial environments. His research experience spans working with Escherichia coli, Pichia pastoris and tissue culture in the fields of biopharmaceutical manufacturing, cell and gene therapy, whole cell biocatalysis, tissue engineering and 3D bioprinting.

Process Engineer

Matthew is a driven process engineer with several years of experience in the fermentation for sustainable foods industry, working across various scales from pilot to full scale production plants.

During Matthew’s previous role at Enough he was heavily involved across a wide range of project delivery stages. These ranged from detailed plant design and equipment acceptance testing to process commissioning and operations support for a 10,000 tonne per year alternative protein production facility. During this time, he was also responsible for process modelling to estimate utility usages, support expansion projects and perform techno-economic assessments.

Fermentation Scientist

With more than three years of experience in biotechnology, Monica specializes in fermentation processes across both small and large-scale applications. She has experience in carrying fermentation processes using different microorganisms and has worked with both small-scale yeast cultivation and large-scale bacterial fermentation, managing systems up to 300 L. Her work has aimed multiple applications across the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and textiles industries. In addition to technical expertise, Monica is trained in internal auditing, valuing process improvement and quality control. 

Business Executive

Senior Scientist

Scale up Engineer

Researcher

Researcher

Researcher

Research Scientist