Award Winners
You'll find details of all of the winners right here.
Olly is a Senior Consultant at Food Innovation Solutions, an Innovation & Insight agency with a number of top-name clients. Having built up experience as a development chef in both retail and manufacturing, he has worked on multi-channel accounts across product ranges such as food-to-go, ready meals, and baked goods. His in-depth understanding of how to develop products correctly targeted to consumers equips him with a wealth of knowledge to push the boundaries of innovation, while his love and passion for food ensures his eye for quality and authenticity is retained.
Based in central London, Olly can often be found in the queue for the latest ‘foodie’ opening, hosting industry food safaris, or behind the stove at Mission Kitchen.
Sam Brotchie, founder of Sexy Buns, began his professional journey in Sales, Marketing, and Business Management in Brittany, France, Sam's journey took a transformative turn when he spent a year farming in Australia, developing a deep appreciation for fresh, high quality ingredients.
Upon returning to France, despite his friends' and family's skepticism, he pursued a career in hospitality. Determined to learn from the best, he moved to the South of France and, after a few phone calls, secured a position at Le Suisse in St Jean de Luz, a restaurant owned by the esteemed chefs Yves Camdeborde and Ramuntxo Courdé. This opportunity allowed him to begin his formal training as a chef.
In 2017, Sam moved to London, joining the Michelin-starred Céleste at The Lanesborough under Eric Fréchon where he honed his skills in fine dining. He later helped expand a well-known kebab restaurant group from two to ten locations in Covent Garden.
In April 2023, Sam launched Sexy Buns, his latest venture, elevating the humble sandwich to a gastronomic sensation now with four sites across London.
Cerys graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2014 with a BSC Hons in Agriculture, specialising in livestock production and farm business management. She holds a PGDip in Agri-food, also from University of Nottingham, and has undertaken studies into Sustainable Food Security at Wageningen University.
Cerys has spent the last decade working in a variety of agriculture and sustainability roles across hospitality, retail and consulting. She spent several years within the Agriculture team at Sainsbury's, particularly focusing on pork and egg supply chains as Agriculture Manager. Following a consulting role in the Agricultural Value Chains team at South Pole, Cerys joined Heart with Smart as Sustainability Manager in August 2022. She leads on the development and delivery of their sustainability strategy and decarbonisation journey for the Pizza Hut and Itsu brands, whilst also collaborating with the Pizza Hut brand teams on their European sustainability strategy.
Ex-restaurateur Nick Gross is Founder and Principal Partner of LanburyHundred; a specialist hospitality consultancy. Nick and his colleagues at LanburyHundred work nationally and globally across a very broad range of cuisines for startups, existing businesses, individual restaurants, private individuals, corporate entities and hotel chains.
Nick’s background is in fine dining having worked for Marco Pierre White for six years and it is the standards, professionalism and ethos he learnt whilst there that he applies to all projects he undertakes.
As well as F&B concept creation, feasibility studies, operational reviews, business plans and project management, Nick is pleased to have been a judge for the PAPA Awards since 2021.
Katy is the owner and Franchisor of Village Pizza.
She joined the world of pizza 32 years ago and her goal was to provide restaurant quality food to the homes of her customers and change the face of the industry, training top team members, using the highest quality ingredients and being involved with the community. She has been passionate about pizza and the industry as a whole ever since.
Katie and her team, train, work and source hard to stay a step above the market and their ethos has never wavered.
James is Sales and Marketing Director for the ingredients division at Leathams Ltd where he has worked for 25 years. During this time, James has supplied and worked with all UK Pizza Manufacturers of chilled and frozen pizza as well as a number of Italian Pizza Manufacturers.
He has also worked with the leading takeaway brands and several leading high street pizza operators in the UK.
James has been an invaluable member of the PAPA committee for over 10 years and is passionate about pizza and Italian food.
Chris has worked in the baking industry for 44 years, which includes 22 years in the pizza industry and is business development director with Pan’Artisan.
He has worked developing bespoke pizza dough recipes for Pan Artisan, designing doughs, for Asda, Costco, Gordon Ramsey, Paul Ainsworth, Bella Italia, Strada, Center Parcs and many others. He also provides training on how to use Pan Artisan’s dough products within the pizza food service industry.
In addition, Chris has also run all pizza operations at the Wimbledon Championships for the last 3 years, which included developing their own Naples dough recipe.
The highlight of his career was winning the Craft Guild of Chefs “Development Chef of the Year Award” in 2018, for pizza doughs developed for clients.
He has judged many bakery, pizza, street food and breakfast awards over the years including the PAPA Awards
Richard was CEO of Trade Association British Frozen Food Federation from 2019 to 2022 and is currently Chairman of the Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association (his second term) of which he has been a member since 2011.
He has a proven track record of building a business supplying Private Label products to UK supermarkets and a deep knowledge of Private Label supply across all elements of the process.
He is also considered an expert in understanding the UK retail space and often is asked for his views on developments by the media.
Since 2017 he has been a partner at IPLC a boutique consultancy that focuses on Private Label. As part of this Richard runs a Private Label Group, which is a forum for non-competing manufactures into the UK Private Label market.
Richard has experience in lobbying UK Government across a range of policy issues including food, immigration, Brexit, Covid, and food safety and is also an ambassador for More People a leading recruitment provider in the food sector.
The PAPA Industry Awards 2024 - Highlights and Reactions