Introductions speakers

Sofie van den Enk

Sofie van den Enk is a Dutch presenter and experienced moderator. As one of the former faces of Keuringsdienst van Waarde, the investigative programme that looks behind the scenes of food production, she has spent years exploring how our food is made, where ingredients come from and what happens along the chain. That curiosity about the full food system makes her a natural guide for a day on food waste, residual streams and circular animal food products. With her open, accessible style, she brings together perspectives from policy, research and industry, and makes complex topics engaging for everyone in the room.

Toine Timmermans

Toine Timmermans is the initiator and director of Food Waste Free United, the Dutch public-private partnership working to halve food waste by 2030. He has been working on the topic of Food Loss and Waste for 25 years. He is also Programme Manager Sustainable Food Chains at Wageningen University & Research. He previously coordinated the European projects FUSIONS and REFRESH on food loss and waste (2011-2019), where already important technical, consumer perception and policy work has been done on circular feed. Internationally, he is a member of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste and a Non-Executive Director on the board of End Food Waste Australia.

Ernst van den Ende

Ernst van den Ende is Managing Director of the Animal Sciences Group at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), co-organiser of this conference, and a member of WUR’s management board. Before taking on this role in 2022, he led the Plant Sciences Group for 13 years. That background in both plant and animal sciences gives him a broad view of the food system. He is actively involved in the European livestock innovation platform Animal Task Force, and since December 2025 he has been a member of the board of Food Waste Free United.

Johan Leenders

Johan Leenders is a third-generation farmer in Swifterbant (Flevoland) who developed the Oranjehoen, a slow-growing chicken with the Beter Leven label. His chickens are fed soy-free with residual streams from HelloFresh and arable farming such as carrots and beets.

Debbie Rooms

Debbie Rooms is Head of Sustainability at Vermaat, where since March 2024 she has been leading the sustainability agenda across its catering brands. She focuses on embedding sustainability throughout the chain, from purchasing to food preparation and service, working closely with suppliers, clients, guests and colleagues to address shared sustainability challenges and opportunities.

Sandra Vijn

Sandra Vijn is Managing Director U.S. at Kipster, where she leads the company’s first egg farm in the United States, in Indiana, which Kipster describes as carbon-neutral. She is also responsible for sustainability across Kipster, a company with circularity at its core: its hens are largely fed with residual streams. Sandra brings more than 20 years of experience in sustainable food systems, with previous roles at WWF, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, and the Global Reporting Initiative.

Matthieu van der Meer

Matthieu van der Meer is responsible for sourcing meat, fish, poultry and deli products at Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands and part of Ahold Delhaize. He works with suppliers and chain partners on the supply of fresh protein products.

Anne-Corine Vlaardingerbroek

Anne-Corine Vlaardingerbroek joined Van Loon Group in June 2025 as Program Manager Chain Concepts, where she develops future-proof pork and beef supply chains together with farmers, retailers and other chain partners. Previously, she held sustainability leadership roles at De Heus Animal Nutrition and Jumbo Supermarkets, focusing on sustainability, animal welfare and value chain collaboration.

Michiel Stoutjesdijk

Michiel Stoutjesdijk is Business Development Manager Circular Feed at Agrifirm, and he also leads Product Management for Pigs, Poultry and Organic at Royal Agrifirm Group. He has worked at Agrifirm since 2017, starting as Product Marketing Manager Pigs, after earlier roles as account manager at Rabobank (Food & Agri), Nuscience and Nutreco. In his current role he works on circular feed solutions.

Ilse Niehof-Duivelshof

Ilse Niehof-Duivelshof is Corporate Affairs Director at ForFarmers, a European animal feed company, and a member of its executive team. She joined ForFarmers in 2011 and today her responsibilities include legal and compliance matters, corporate communication, public affairs and sustainability, with circularity as an important part of ForFarmers' strategy.

Veronika Weber

Dr. Veronika Weber is Chief Sustainability Officer at Vion and a member of its leadership team. Since January 2025, she is responsible for sustainability, science, quality assurance and communication. A veterinarian by training, she studied veterinary medicine at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and earned her doctorate at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. She joined Vion in 2017 and held several leadership roles in quality assurance, covering food safety and animal welfare, before taking on her current role. Vion is the value chain partner of Albert Heijn for pork.

Bram Bos

Bram Bos studied biology and science and technology studies, and has a PhD in philosophy of science & technology. He works as a senior researcher and project leader at Wageningen Livestock Research. He specialises in interactive and integrated design processes for livestock systems that combine animal welfare, environment and economics, particularly in poultry.

Mr. Takahashi

Mr. Takahashi, a veterinarian by training, is the founder and president of J.FEC in Japan. His company turns food waste into liquid fermented 'eco-feed' for pigs, and the resulting eco-pork is sold in restaurants, supermarkets and department stores. In 2018, J.FEC received the Prime Minister's Award at the second Japan SDGs Award, the highest distinction in this Japanese government award for organisations that make an outstanding contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Professor Watanabe

Professor Watanabe is a professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts of Teikyo University in Tokyo and a graduate of the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on food waste and waste management in Japan and internationally, including the measurement of household food waste in line with SDG 12.3 and the effects of policy instruments such as pay-as-you-throw schemes. He has analysed the performance of Japan's Food Waste Recycling Law, which since 2001 has made conversion into animal feed the top priority for recycling food waste from businesses.

Hilke Bos-Brouwers

Hilke Bos-Brouwers is a Senior Scientist in Sustainable Supply Chains at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), specialising in food loss and waste, circular bioeconomy and sustainable food systems. Her work bridges research, policy and practice, focusing on food waste prevention, resource valorisation and circular solutions across food supply chains.

She leads WUR's contribution to the international FLARE programme (Food Loss and Waste Action for Reducing Emissions) and is responsible for knowledge exchange in several European circular bioeconomy projects, including CEE2ACT, BIO-INSPIRE, STRONGBIONET and N.AI.S Food. Her work on circular feed includes leading the Dutch policy landscape study on the use of residual streams in animal feed and coordinating the PPS RENEW project, exploring opportunities to valorise kitchen residual streams as animal feed.

Karel van der Velden

Karel van der Velden is Business Development Manager at Nijsen Company, a Dutch animal feed company that has been processing former foodstuffs, such as bread, biscuits and confectionery, into animal feed since 1989.

Every year, Nijsen brings more than 100,000 tonnes of former foodstuffs back into the food chain by converting them into pig and poultry feed, including the fully circular feed produced for Kipster’s laying hens.

Karel has been with Nijsen Company for over 40 years. Beyond his role at Nijsen, he has been actively involved in sustainability initiatives within the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC), contributing to the development of a harmonised methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of animal feed and to efforts to enable the safe use of new residual streams in animal feed across the EU.

Debbie Rooms

Debbie Rooms is Head of Sustainability at Vermaat, where since March 2024 she has been leading the sustainability agenda across its catering brands. She focuses on embedding sustainability throughout the chain, from purchasing to food preparation and service, working closely with suppliers, clients, guests and colleagues to address shared sustainability challenges and opportunities.

Esmée van Veen

Esmée van Veen leads sustainability topics at Lidl Nederland, including its goal to halve food waste by 2030 compared with 2018. In 2026 she launched a pilot in which ten Lidl stores turn unsold food into circular animal feed, together with FeedValid and Food Waste Free United. She also introduced Lidl's 'Verspil Mij Niet' fruit and vegetable bag.

Marcel de Geus

Marcel de Geus has been Purchase Manager Benelux at FeedValid since 2021. FeedValid turns residual streams from bread, biscuit, chocolate and snack production into circular ingredients for animal feed. He previously worked on food waste management strategies at ReFood and is a partner in the Lidl circular feed pilot.

Ben Dingley

Ben Dingley is Food Surplus & Waste Operations Project Manager at Tesco, where he has worked for 20 years, starting his career in stores, he has worked in the office for 14 years across a number of functions including property maintenance, space range and display, commercial buying, operations and projects. Since 2016, he has scoped and piloted award-winning initiatives to cut food waste and surplus across the business.

Tom Osborne

Tom Osborne is Food By-Products Operations Manager at RenEco, a UK-company that turns surplus food and organic by-products into animal feed, renewable fuel and energy. He is involved in RenEco’s animal feed plant in Chelveston, Northamptonshire, built in collaboration with Tesco to process the retailer’s surplus and produce into livestock feed. 

Will Berman

Will Berman is Partner Implementation Manager at Mill, a technology company using hardware and AI to transform food waste into a measurable, manageable resource. He leads Mill Commercial's flagship deployment with Whole Foods Market and Amazon, and drives the company's work turning recovered food from U.S. grocers into animal feed. Prior to joining Mill, he ran retail implementations at Divert, launching food waste programs with national grocers that diverted more than 10 million pounds of food from landfill, and launched Too Good To Go's New York, Chicago, and Boston markets. He is based in New York.

Susanne Sütterlin

Susanne Sütterlin is director ‘Food Safety and Phytosanitary Market Access’, also serving as Chief Phytosanitary Officer at the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature. She is a biologist by training, and her background combines scientific expertise with policy experience. She has worked at Wageningen University, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority and in the ministry directorates ‘Nature’ and ‘Animal Agri-food chains and Animal Welfare’.

Line Ruden

Line Ruden is Head of the Plants, Feed and Byproducts Section at the Head Office of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (Mattilsynet). The section is responsible for regulations and supervision concerning feed and animal by-products, the areas where food safety and the circular use of residual streams meet. Mattilsynet has been actively engaged in the European discussion on how residual streams and animal by-products can be used safely in animal feed.

Leigh Prezkop

Leigh Prezkop is Senior Program Officer for Food Waste at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), where she has worked since 2016. She leads food loss and farm-level initiatives, advancing solutions to reduce food loss at the primary production stage across WWF’s global network of offices. Leigh created the Global Farm Loss Tool to support the measurement of food loss on farms, helping inform strategies to prevent loss at its source. She also contributes to the US Food Waste Pact, supporting collaborative efforts to reduce food waste across businesses. Prior to joining WWF, Leigh worked as a farmer and served in the US Peace Corps in Zambia.