About Us

The Food Development Association is the first ever association dedicated to food development in all its forms.

By bringing together food development devotees from across the UK and offering them a networking forum, as well as an authoritative source for culinary and technical information, we aim to help foodservice businesses, manufacturers and retailers to enhance their services, products and menus.

In addition the FDA will become an official body for professional and educational advancement, helping its members to enhance their foodservice skills, knowledge, and careers.

Contacting Us:

The FDA
Progressive House,
2 Maidstone Road,
Sidcup,
Kent DA14 5HZ

Telephone: 0870 746 6396
Fax: 0870 746 5186
Email: fda@dewberryredpoint.co.uk

Membership Services

Telephone: 0870 7466396
Fax: 0870 7465186
Email: fda@dewberryredpoint.co.uk

Meet the team...

Jason Danciger – FDA chairman
Jason Danciger describes himself as a passionate catering professional. He heads up hospitality for retail giant Marks & Spencer, which includes restaurants, deli bars, espresso bars, cafés, in store bakeries, hot food to go counters and kitchens. He is also a non executive director of the London International Wine & Spirits Trade Fair.

After becoming the first ever English sous chef at the michelin starred Interlude de Tabaillau Jason spent several years cooking with the Roux Brothers at Gavroche, Gamin, Pulbot, Boucherie Lamartine and outside catering as well as with other legendary restaurateurs such as Roy Ackerman and Justin de Blank. Jason became the driving force behind the offer of numerous restaurants such as Café Rouge, Dome, Mamma Amalfi, Rock Island Diner, Dragon Inns, Chez Gérard, Livebait, Bertorelli's, Scotts of Mayfair, Ha Ha & Slug & Lettuce and numerous award winning gastro pubs.

John Feeney – FDA vice chairman
As European culinary director for Griffith Laboratories, John Feeney is heavily involved in developing new concepts, new applications and innovative products for this global food ingredients business. His passion for food and innovation means he is constantly on the move looking out for the new and unusual that he can transform into workable food solutions. Prior to Griffith Laboratories, he was with Sodexho Prestige running events across Britain, his finest being solely responsible for running hospitality at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 where he had to develop and design menus for clients such as the BBC, Cadbury and Microsoft.

In the late ‘90s he was north regional division development chef for the group, then known as Gardner Merchant, where he devised a forum of executive chefs within the company to gain knowledge from one another to bring in new ideas, new faces and new input to move the business forward.

Keith Miller
For the past 11 years Keith Miller has worked in product development for Greencore, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of convenience food that includes branded and own label grocery products, ready meals, sandwiches, salads, sushi, quiches, cakes and frozen and chilled desserts. He is currently horizons manager for Greencore Grocery. Previously he was catering director and professional catering and hospitality lecturer at York College.

As a career chef, he has a wealth of experience from having worked in hotels, restaurants, in flight catering and industrial catering in the UK and in Europe.

In addition, he has visited and studied the food styles of Thailand, Vietnam, Southern India, Morocco, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

He has also received a Commandeur de la Commanderie des Cordons Bleus de France, an honour bestowed on him by the gastronomes of Burgundy, France.

Tony Murphy
Tony Murphy is executive development chef for the Compass Group. Before joining the group in 1992, he worked in some of the country’s top hotels and restaurants, and he has put this wealth of experience to good use in his current role. He has developed a range of products and concepts for the contract catering giant and has been praised for “re-establishing the importance of food” within the business.

The ‘steam concept’ he developed is now used to serve thousands of meals in hospitals and schools across the UK and in more than five other European countries. He has also been actively involved with the Junior Compass Academy and Springboard’s FutureChef competition, which are aimed at developing young talent.

In 2008, he was presented with the Craft Guild of Chefs development chef award, a prestigious accolade particularly as the nominees are chosen for their outstanding contribution to their business by their peers and industry experts.

Marsha Hemingway

Marsha Hemingway is the principal of Good Sense Research. Her working career kicked off after university at Procter & Gamble, then SmithKline (Beechams) after which she left to become research manager at Weetabix where she was heavily involved in food and drink new product development. Good Sense Research was set up in 1996 by combining the skills of food scientist, psychologist and business economist to provide a thorough NPD full service research agency. It now keeps focused on trends and developments in the marketplace and constantly appraises products from the customers’ point of view. Its sensory testing facility benchmarks products for foodservice and retail – and she says her business is tough – if products don’t pass the company’s tests, it fails.

Richard Fagan
FDA director Richard Fagan has spent his early professional chef career in some prestigious catering establishments including the Chester Grosvenor Hotel, Hanbury Manor Hotel and Harrods. Always an avid food learner, he moved his focus from the kitchen into the laboratory studying for his honours degree in food science and agriculture at the University of Nottingham. This gave him a unique perspective on food – having the passion of a chef but also the measured and critical approach of a scientist. He went on to work for pastes specialist Shippams before joining the Meat & Livestock Commission as foodservice development manager. He then joined the meat focused company Esca Food Solutions as NPD manager for the McDonald’s account. He played a technical and pivotal role in bringing its new “M” burger to the UK market.