Meet the Team
Victoria Williams
Director
Victoria is co-founder and Director at Food Matters. Her work has always centred on testing ideas, piloting initiatives and supporting programmes so the best of them can take root and flourish. Victoria’s background is in food access, and she is particularly interested in how to ensure marginalised voices are heard in food systems transformation work.
She leads Food Matters’ prison food reform programme, and has been instrumental in the development of the Sustainable Food Places programme, a nationally and internationally recognised programme supporting local, cross-sector food partnerships and food strategies delivering citizen-led, food systems transformation.
Victoria has led on developing local food partnerships for over 20 years, a journey that started in Brighton, where she is Chair of the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. She is also a trustee at Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.
Helen Starr-Keddle
Deputy Director
Helen is the Deputy Director at Food Matters, where she leads the development of programmes and funding streams that drive people-centred food systems transformation. She oversees the organisation’s consultancy work, providing tailored support and facilitation to help food organisations strengthen their strategic direction. Helen also sits on the Programme Management Board of Sustainable Food Places, contributing to the strategic guidance of the UK-wide movement.
With a deep-rooted passion for food, the environment, and community engagement, Helen brings a wealth of experience spanning the charity sector—from grassroots initiatives to policy development. Her work has included leading campaigns, coordinating land-based projects and community allotments, and supporting networks and initiatives focused on food growing, cooking, surplus redistribution, and emergency food provision. She has also played a key role in shaping local food strategies and policies, with a particular focus on addressing food insecurity.
Alongside her role at Food Matters, Helen also works for the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. Through the Cultivate EU project, she shares best practice with European partners and leads on Edible Brighton & Hove—a citywide campaign encouraging and supporting urban food growing.
When she’s not working, you’ll likely find Helen tending her allotment, letting loose on a dancefloor, or getting lost in a good book.
Chris Kelly
Team Support Officer
Chris is the Team Support Officer at Food Matters – assisting with the everyday running of the charity as well as supporting team members on their individual projects – formatting the His Wellbeing magazines for those in the prison estate. Growing up and working in a family-run hotel and restaurant instilled a love of food and local produce as well as passion for cooking. Community is a value that is central to him and was highlighted during his time working for the British Red Cross Independent Living and Emergency Response team prior to joining Food Matters.
He also has a creative background having studied music and guitar at university. When out of the office you might find Chris in the garden learning to grow food or in the kitchen exploring a new recipe or cuisine. Developing a recent passion for wine has him inspired to work through the WSET wine courses and work part-time for the independent Brighton shop – Quaff.
Helen Sandwell
Inside & Out Project Lead and Nutritionist
Helen Sandwell is a nutritionist and the Project Lead for Criminal Justice at Food Matters, with a special interest in mental health. She pioneered work in the UK around good nutrition as part of drug treatment before moving her focus to the importance of healthy food for people in prison. With Food Matters she has developed healthy eating courses which have demonstrated statistically significant improvements to people’s food choices. She edits His Wellbeing and Her Wellbeing publications, which are available to all people in UK prisons and writes a monthly column for Inside Time newspaper.
Freya Harrap
Inside & Out Senior Project Officer and Nutritionist
Freya is a nutritionist and senior project officer in criminal justice and youth work at Food Matters. With a background working and volunteering in community nutrition, she has extensive experience developing and facilitating evidence-based nutrition and wellbeing programmes.
Her passion lies in using participatory approaches to make nutrition accessible and engaging for a diverse range of groups. From creating quick pickles and fresh bread with women in prison and probation services, to making ‘healthy pot noodles’ with LGBTQ+ young people, families, and carers. Freya loves using creative, hands-on learning methods that meet people where they are.
Her experience delivering nutrition education informs her work researching and contributing to policy. Most recently, she co-authored a toolkit offering recommendations for embedding a whole systems approach and positive behaviour change around physical and mental health, through diet and food growing in prisons.
Freya’s experience of the food system doesn’t stop at nutrition, however. She is also passionate about food growing, and works part-time as a veg grower at an organic market garden. She loves bringing these worlds together, by teaching outdoor wellbeing sessions for young people in food-growing spaces.
When she’s not growing or talking about food, you can find Freya on long countryside walks, making jewellery, or sewing elaborate costumes
Ben Messer
Community Engagement & Participation Lead
Ben is the lead on Community Engagement and Participation at Food Matters, covering everything to do with participatory processes, representation, engagement and inclusion.
He is an expert facilitator, with over 30 years’ experience in the UK and the majority world, helping groups, communities and organisations to work together collaboratively and fairly. His role also encompasses capacity building and skills development, supporting people to strengthen their community development practice through adoption of a participatory ethos in their work.
Ben leads the Representation and Justice work in the UK’s Sustainable Food Places programme, including co-development of the REDI for Change anti-racism ethos and the REDI Review Tool – a self-reflection methodology helping organisations view their culture, practice and people through the lens of race, equity, diversity and inclusion.
Ruth Smart
Communications & Project Officer
Ruth works across communications and project delivery at Food Matters, keeping the website and social media fresh while also co-delivering nutrition sessions and facilitating focus groups. Her background spans grassroots to international food systems work, with roles in community gardens + kitchens, as a project officer for the Edible Cities Network, and organising Seedy Sunday. Understanding how food is grown, prepared, consumed, and composted was both a profound and humbling experience for Ruth in connecting her to the cycles of nature, and other humans – and hopes to share this experience with others.
Beyond Food Matters, Ruth manages a choir for people affected by homelessness with the Choir With No Name. She also co-runs bbg, a DJ collective for gender-expansive folk and women, creating space in the electronic music scene through workshops, radio shows, and inclusive events. Whether in a garden, workshop, or behind the decks, she loves creating opportunities for confidence and creativity to grow – and brings that same energy into her work by celebrating and platforming others.
Callum Chapman
Impact & Engagement Coordinator
Callum is the Impact & Engagement Coordinator at Food Matters. His role is to demonstrate the organisations impact and to help tell stories about our work. He also facilitates participatory workshops and helps conduct our evaluations.
He is the Impact Lead for Sustainable Food Places, a UK wide network of Food Partnerships delivered in collaboration with the Soil Association and Sustain. The programme aims to make healthy and sustainable food a defining characteristic of where people live.
Callum has a passion for improving food systems and equitable access to nutritious food. He has previously worked as the engagement officer at the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership’s Community Kitchen and volunteered at Chomp Fabrica, a creative school holiday lunch club for families on low incomes.
He also has a background as a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies and Eastbourne Food Partnership. His work focused on grassroot innovations for food security and the value of locally grown produce.
Bea Seddon
Evaluation and Impact Project Support Officer
Bea is the Evaluation and Impact Project Support Officer at Food Matters, working to demonstrate the impact of the Sustainable Food Places network. Alongside collecting and evaluating impact data, she is supporting the Food Matters team with wider work in strengthening local food systems.
Currently studying International Development with Spanish at Sussex, and with a background in volunteering with youth cooking groups, she has developed a passion for grassroots change which innovates and meaningfully involves communities. This view was amplified through a research programme where she studied agricultural insurance as a tool for climate resilience, and considered the neglect of smallholders’ voices in policy design as a key limitation to the novel approach.
Meet the Trustees
Tim Marsh
Trustee
Tim is an experienced Public Health policy professional. He is particularly interested in school food and diet related chronic disease. He has worked at a local, national and international level within NGOs, Government and academia.
‘Being a trustee enables me to both develop organisational skills and work with a talented group of individuals, from a variety of backgrounds, on a number of stimulating issues within a friendly and entertaining environment.’
Kath Dalmeny
Trustee
In her day job, Kath Dalmeny coordinates the Sustain food and farming alliance, supporting action across the food and farming system for health, fairness and sustainability. She is particularly interested in place-based action such as the Sustainable Food Places network, and support for people most marginalised in our food system, so is a long-term supporter of Food Matters and its pioneering work on these important issues.
‘Food Matters is a really great group of people trying to make positive change happen in the food system, in a principled, connected, supportive, human-centred and down-to-earth (down to soil!) sort of way. I really love working with a team who values communities and the role that good policies, planning and decision-making can in creating the spaces and institutions that enable better ways of feeding ourselves and each other.’
Colin Havard
Trustee
Colin is an experienced community development person, currently focusing on cohesion and poverty. He also has extensive experience of being on organisational strategic management.
‘I really enjoy being part of the FM team as I continue to learn from and be inspired by other board members and staff.’
Sam Dyer
Trustee
Sam was awarded an MBE in 2021 for her work addressing food inequality and championing food justice in Cambridge, where she leads the Cambridge Food Partnership – one of the few food partnerships to have a achieves a SFP gold award. She has 15 years’ experience running her own catering businesses and brings a wealth of experience from the voluntary sector, having worked in housing, social enterprise, sustainability, and event catering.
‘I’m thrilled to be joining the trustee team at Food Matters as the work aligns so closely with my passion for creating fairer, more sustainable food systems. With 20 years of experience in the food industry, including ten years focused on local food systems and community engagement I’m eager to bring my expertise and knowledge to the organisation.’
Dr Rounaq Nayak
Trustee
Dr Rounaq Nayak is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Agri-Food Systems at Bournemouth University and an Economic and Social Research Council Policy Fellow at the Wales Centre for Public Policy. Rounaq’s extensive background in building sustainable agri-food systems involves community co-production, policy advocacy, and integrating lived-experience voices into decision-making. Their current work focuses on engaging marginalised communities in sustainability and resilience-building efforts using a systems approach, bridging the gap between policy and practice.
‘I’m thrilled to join the trustee team at Food Matters and contribute to their mission of creating healthier, sustainable food systems. I look forward to bringing my expertise and experience in meaninguflly involving community voices and lived experience to drive impactful policy changes. Together, we can build a more resilient and equitable food system that serves everyone.’
Dain Son
Trustee
Dain currently works at Deloitte UK as their internal Sustainability Manager leading. Her work focuses on decarbonising the building operations involving close collaboration with their caterers to increase environmental and social sustainability. Outside her day job, she focuses her energy on supporting young people, especially people of colour, to enter the sustainability profession through guest lectures and 1-2-1 mentoring. To tackle issues around discrimination and exclusion with her profession, she has started designing and delivering sessions around anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion. Finally, she is currently writing as a contributing author for an academic textbook titled: Sustainable Development in Teaching and Education Programmes focusing on making sustainability education inclusive which will be published by Springer in 2025.
‘I am delighted to be joining the Food Matters team as a Trustee after searching for an organisation whose values and purpose as closely aligned with mine. I was impressed with how the team are holistically approaching environmental and social sustainability issues which not as many organisations are doing currently. Therefore I look forward to bringing my experiences in corporate sustainability as well as my personal passion and lived experiences around diversity, equity, inclusion and leadership to serve the charity’
Daphne Du Cros
Trustee
Daphne Du Cros thinks in systems and works to weave networks across different spaces and scales to activate food system resilience and practical plans for capacity building. She is the Partnership lead for Shropshire Good Food, connecting the dots across in the food system from farms and communities, to the county and the Marches bioregion level – for transformation through partnership and collaboration. She is the founder of Food Forward Bishop’s Castle which produced the first Community Food Resilience Strategy in Shropshire and operates the Bishop’s Castle Community Seed Bank.
She holds a PhD in Food Policy, is a Visiting Lecturer at Harper Adam’s University, teaching in Food Policy and Ethics. Her work include research, training and consulting on local food resilience and strategies for communities and Councils.
Get In Touch
Reach out to the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do, get involved or to collaborate with us on a future project at [email protected]
Get In Touch
Reach out to the Food Matters team to find out more about what we do, get involved or to collaborate with us on a future project.
