Jonny Harrison is sailing to Australia from the UK via the Panama Canal before he starts work in Sydney on a secondment at his firm PricewaterhouseCoopers »
Andrew Hebden is Assistant Editor (Business) of The Journal »
Katie Pringle has started her own business, Rock, Paper, Scissors »
Andrew Mernin is the Digital Journalist for nebusiness »
Matthew Rippon is an IP lawyer for BHP Law »
Formerly editor of a national business lifestyle magazine, Jez Davison is a business writer for the Evening Gazette in Teesside »
Ross Smith, Head of Policy and Research at the North-East Chamber of Commerce »
Julian Christopher from Footprint Public Relations, on media and marketing »
Norma Foster from the North East Regional Portal writes about e-business »
Ian Brown, Northumberland farmer and businessman writes about the agricultural industry »
Accessibilty Champion Steve Wilkinson on the importance of inclusion »
Andrea Wilkinson of Shared Interest is visiting Rwanda to deliver business training »
Jonathan Wheatley from Stokesley-based MC Ware writes about IT matters »
Paul Williamson from Deloitte »EAT is now over for another year, it goes from success to success and has continued to provoke all the senses.
One week ago I had the honour of announcing the North East Chef of the Year 2008 results - the awards came at the end of a long day of cook offs and being in catering I know the pressure to perform and indeed the rivalry that exisits between the top chefs in the north east, as Wendy Gibson said on the night it is also great that a woman won through in a world that can seem male dominated. My brief was to either give a speech or not...I read the audience and given the time of night kept to reading the names out.....but since I'd given it a bit of thought here is the speech that was never uttered...............
Ladies and Gentlemen, guests from Malmao, Sweden
Fellow Foodies - I like Wendy Gibson had the real privelege of growing up on a farm and knowing exactly where the food we ate came from...the garden and the farm.....literally food yards as opposed to miles. I am a 16th generation farmer who now is involved in catering so I have strong views on the food chain and have been involved in the plough to plate journey personally. I always encourage people to use food with a story to tell, selling at farmers markets meant I got to know many of the regions best artisan producers. Food should be about more than simply sustenance of the body and it's great to see the EAT festival tackling all the senses. Why is ONEnortheast involved with food?
Firstly for Economic reasons - funding the regional food group, helping food processors expand and food festivals grow - see website
Secondly for social reasons - as a balanced society in the north east we need to see everything from allotments to five-a-day in our schools being taken forward by the appropriate agencies
Lastly the environment has many uses but having a landscape that tourists want to see that can also produce good food for the region is a fantastic aspiration.
So thank you for inviting a man of the soil to announce these awards and and a big thank you to all those who made tonight and the EAT fortnight possible...it has brought us to international notice and that is a good thing - feel the understatement!
Goodnight and godbless
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