Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Manager operating in the Food and Beverage space. If you think a Manager is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Ash Tapia
Data and Tools Manager of Unilever
In his 10+ year Digital Advertising and Analytics career, Ash has worked in India and the UK. He has extensive experience in digital advertising, social media marketing and digital analytics. He leads the Data & Tools team at Unilever’s People Data Centre. His team is responsible for identifying partners that can improve our analytics capabilities or solve our data needs. His team is increasingly interested in Machine Learning as a Service type solutions and data driven marketing. Prior to working at Unilever, Ash had an executive leadership role at Goonj, a digital analytics startup, where he was responsible for laying the early foundations for accelerated growth.Before this, Ash worked at various digital marketing agencies. During this time, he was responsible for establishing successful client partnerships, which were instrumental in growing the agency accounts of blue-chip companies such as Unilever, PepsiCo, Endemol, Lamborghini, etc.
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About Unilever, Unilever: Unilever produces and supplies fast-moving consumer goods in food, home, and personal care product categories worldwide.
Steve Challouma
General Manager UK at Birds Eye Ltd of Nomad Foods
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About Nomad Foods: Nomad Foods is a manufacturer, seller, and distributor of branded frozen food products.
Miryka Rule
Principal Delivery Manager of Just Eat
During Miryka’s career she has worked in different industries from universities to ecommerce. Miryka is now at Just Eat leading delivery for key parts of the platform. Miryka’s passion is to help people at all levels work better together. She has used her 10 years experience in the technology industry to support teams to be happier, more focused and increase their productivity. Starting as front end engineer Miryka saw gaps for change and made it her mission to cultivate environments and ways of working which work for the “do-ers” not the HIPPO.
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About Just Eat: Just Eat provides convenient and easy access to a huge variety of delivery restaurants and order food online.
Stephen Moorhouse
Vice President, General Manager – Northern Europe of Coca-Cola Enterprises
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About Coca-Cola Enterprises: Coca-Cola Enterprises is a marketer, producer, and distributor of non-alcoholic drinks.
Nikita Medvedev
Senior Manager & Predictive Analytics of Coca-Cola Enterprises
Nikita is leading Predictive Analytics at Coca-Cola Canada. Together with his team he is transforming terabytes of business operations data into actionable insights to drive growth and innovate in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. He loves finding novel solutions to old problems and is obsessed with driving real lasting change through better use of data. Nikita has over 10 years of experience in the Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods industries, working for companies like Loblaw and Sears. He is also an alumnus of the Master of Management Analytics program from Queen’s University, and holds a Bachelor of Finance & Economics degree from University of Toronto.
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About Coca-Cola Enterprises: Coca-Cola Enterprises is a marketer, producer, and distributor of non-alcoholic drinks.
Leendert Den Hollander
Vice President and General Manager of Coca-Cola Enterprises
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About Coca-Cola Enterprises: Coca-Cola Enterprises is a marketer, producer, and distributor of non-alcoholic drinks.
Kat Knocker
General Manager of Tails.com
Kat’s Product and Customer Experience team sits firmly at the centre of tails.com, keeping the customer right at the heart of the business as tails.com continues to grow. A member of Management Today’s 35 Under 35, Kat is part of the founding team at tails.com and has seen the businesses rapid growth over the last 4 years, becoming one of the most advanced players in the direct-to-consumer, tailor-made pet nutrition category who today deliver more than 4 million bespoke dog meals each month. Kat and her team are driven by a passion to change the lives of dogs and their owners for the better, and are proud of their customer advocacy including a 9.6 score on Trustpilot. Tailored, personalised experiences for both dogs and owners are a core part of tails.com’s product and success – and remain as personalised today as they did at the start. Kat is passionate about creating products and services that truly engage customers, and brings her skills and experience from Innocent Drinks and graze.com to her role at tails.com.
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About Tails.com: Tails.com is an online pet nutrition service that provides tailor-made food designed to deliver perfectly optimised nutrition for dogs.
Georgia Derry-Evans
Events and Operations Manager of Feast It
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About Feast It: Feast It is an online marketplace that allows its customers to book independent caterers for their work or social events.
Will Latus
Operations Manager of Whey Box
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About LATUS Training, Whey Box: Whey Box is a food and beverages company that specializes in providing protein powder.
Jo Miguens
Senior Marketing Manager of Nez
Jo Miguens is a Senior Marketing Manager at Nez.
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About Nez: Nez is a local marketing channel for the eating and drinking out of home sector
Gavin Phelps
Operations Manager of Oddbox
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About Oddbox: Oddbox is a provider of fruit and veg box delivery service intended to reduce food waste.
Angela Cearns
Chief eCommerce Officer & General Manager of Pizza Hut UK
Angela Cearns is the Chief eCommerce Officer and General Manager for Pizza Hut Digital Ventures, leading Pizza Hut International through the digital transformation journey from a traditional casual dining restaurant to a leader in online ordering and delivery. Angela came from Amazon in Seattle where she served as the Executor Director of International Expansion of their Fulfilment by Amazon business; GM of Amazon Global Selling marketplace business; and the Head of Prime Technology Platform that powers Amazon global Prime membership and Prime benefit offerings including Prime Videos and Prime Music. Prior to Amazon, Angela spent a decade in California Silicon Valley with Symantec and the Norton Anti-Virus brand in a number of leadership positions from IT-Business Director, eCommerce Director, and finishing as Sr. Director of Customer Retention, Worldwide eCommerce. Angela has a Master of Software Engineering degree from the University of Colorado and Advanced Project Management from Stanford University. She is currently a guest professor at the European Institute for e-Commerce Management at Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
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About Pizza Hut UK: Pizza Hut UK is a franchise of an American restaurant chain known for Italian-American cuisine including pizza and pasta.
John Sookias
Senior Account Manager of SALT
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About SALT: Salt is a marketing firm that specializes in the food and beverage industry.
Elinor Steers
Manager of people and development of Friska
Elinor Steers has been serving as manager of people and development at Friska since January 2016.
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About Friska: Friska is predominantly focused on breakfast, lunch and coffee.
Tom Ballhatchet
Product Design Manager of Eskesso
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About Eskesso, Yoto: Eskesso is smart sous vide cooking appliance and cloud platform.
Steve Gutteridge
New Business Manager of Tugo Food Solutions
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About Tugo Food Solutions: Tugo is an award-winning B2B foodservice company at the cutting edge of food retail.
Jemma Cheung
Regional Manager of 7Bone Burger
I believe in controlling your professional and personal life. Taking controlling and making it your own, I believe if you work hard you will achieve what you want in life. I have learnt many things in the companies I have been involved in, but I have much more to learn, more that I want to learn!
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About 7Bone Burger: 7Bone Burger is a fast casual restaurant concept focused on bringing high quality burgers to the UK regions.
Paul Brown
Manager of Operations of Inn Collection
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About Inn Collection: The Inn Collection, a hospitality and pub company, owns and operates a chain of pubs and inns in North England.
Gary Turner
Commercial and Compliance Manager of Inn Collection
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About Inn Collection: The Inn Collection, a hospitality and pub company, owns and operates a chain of pubs and inns in North England.
Kat Warburton
Founder, Booker & Promotions Manager – La Discothèque of Mission Mars
Kat Warburton is the Founder, Booker & Promotions Manager – La Discothèque at Mission Mars
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About Mission Mars, Mission Mars: Mission Mars is a multi concept operator.
Richard Wilson
Marketing Manager of AuditComply
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About AuditComply: AuditComply is an Integrated Risk Management platform.
Richard Wilson
Marketing Manager of AuditComply
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About AuditComply: AuditComply is an Integrated Risk Management platform.
Seonaid Hyslop-Parsons
Business Manager of Berry White
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About Berry White: Berrywhite is a brand of natural organic fruit juice drinks.
Faye Woodcock
Area Operations Manager of Bar Soba
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About Bar Soba: Bar Soba fast became a staple of the city’s burgeoning bar and restaurant scene.
Antony Pinn
Purchasing & Planning Manager of Mademoiselle Desserts
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About Mademoiselle Desserts, Ministry of Cake: Mademoiselle Desserts is manufacturing and supplying high quality, decadent desserts, cakes, slices, tortes, and tarts across UK.
Ben Walton
Marketing Manager of Provenance Butcher
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About Provenance Butcher: Provenance Butcher is a butcher shop that also provides online delivery services.
Eveliina Suoyrjo
Marketing Manager of Raikastamo
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About Raikastamo: Raikastamo is a growing business of producing premium organic juices.
Martin Rayomand
NPD Commercialization Project Manager of Monster Energy
An aspiring bi-lingual Project Manager who has gained invaluable skills and experience across the private sector both internationally and in the UK. Possesses a detailed knowledge of all aspects of the packaging development and design, manufacture engineering, IT sector, advertising and printing industry combined with business development, marketing, branding, project and production management. Highly skilled to deliver pre-planned business objectives within a highly competitive industry.
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About Monster Energy: Support the scene, bands, athletes and fans
Sam Nixon
General Manager of Jonas Sports
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About Jonas Sports: Jonas Sports provides enterprise solutions, as well as software and services for sports clubs and organizations.
Stephanie Bradley
Product Manager of Caterforce
Stephanie Bradley is the product manager of Caterforce.
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About Caterforce: Caterforce is a foodservice buying and marketing consortium in the UK.
Loic Dumas
Business Development Manager of Vermuteria
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About FrogValley, Vermuteria: Vermuteria is an all-day restaurant, café, and bar with roots in the European cafés and restaurants.
William Gilpin
Owner / General Manager of Gilfresh Produce
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About Gilfresh Produce: Gilfresh Produce is a company that grows and manages the growing of over 2,500 acres of field vegetables and salad crops.
Nichola Redshaw
Office Manager of Freshroast Coffee
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About Freshroast Coffee: Freshroast Coffee provides processes, packages, and markets coffee, tea, and other vending ingredients to distributors and beverage systems.
Nichola Redshaw
Office Manager of Freshroast Coffee
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About Freshroast Coffee: Freshroast Coffee provides processes, packages, and markets coffee, tea, and other vending ingredients to distributors and beverage systems.
