Annual event in London will see lecture delivered by Sir Charles Godfray

Sophie Lawrence, Sue Davies and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

Sophie Lawrence, Sue Davies and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

The City Food & Drink Lecture’s panel of industry experts has been revealed.

The panel, which will be chaired by Radio 4 Farming Today’s Charlotte Smith, will tackle a range of topics and questions put forward by the 600-strong audience at the event in London on 15 May.

Panellists for this year’s event are Sophie Lawrence, stewardship and engagement lead at Rathbones Greenbank; Sue Davies, head of consumer rights and food policy at Which?; and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, founder of The Black Farmer.

The lecture will be delivered by Sir Charles Godfray, director of Oxford University’s Oxford Martin School and its Future of Food Programme. He is set to discuss the resilience of the food and drink system, the impact of de-globalisation, the challenges of net zero and the creative and disruption potential of new technologies, among other issues.

CFDL chair John Giles said: “We put a good deal of thought into the composition of the panel for the City Food & Drink Lecture and this is a very important part of the overall event itself. This year we again have three excellent people on the panel, each from different parts of the supply chain.

”We are very much looking forward to hearing their thoughts and views from the questions received from the audience and then their reaction to the keynote speech delivered by Sir Charles Godfray. This will cover issues such as de-globalisation, diet, moving towards genuine net-zero carbon commitments, anti-obesity drugs and the need to stress test our food and drink system through a series of huge supply chain shocks over the last few years”.