He was cast as the acclaimed commentator on the 7 Network series Iron Chef Australia and is a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s Good Food section in which he writes the popular and humourous Brain Food column. Richard writes a weekly column in the Saturday Age called Six Reasons to Visit.

Richard has written four cookbooks on Spanish cuisine with Spanish-born chef Frank Camorra. He has written another cookbook on Spanish food and one on Mexican food for publisher Gourmet Pilgrim. Richard is a frequent contributor to Gourmet Traveller Magazine.

As a former comedy writer and TV producer Richard has found his calling in writing about food, where it comes from, how it is grown and how it enjoyed

He has a major interest in preventative medicine, which often involves primarily altering their diet. He is an advocate of a Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat (LCHF) lifestyle for the health benefits.

In recent years Gary has focused on the role of diet in the development of diabetes, obesity and cancer. He has been speaking out internationally on the combined role of sugar, fructose, refined carbohydrates and polyunsaturated oils linking together to be behind inflammation and modern disease.

In 2014 he was targeted by the processed food industry for his stand against sugar, being reported to the medical regulator on 3 occasions. After nearly 5 years he was completely exonerated and apologised to by the same regulator.

In the process of his defence, he and his wife Belinda, came to the realisation that the targeting was as much about his promotion of animal-based foods as it was about his stand against plant-based processed foods. That path uncovered the vested interests and ideologies shaping nutritional guidelines at an international level, and particularly the anti-red meat agenda portrayed to the community.

In previous marketing positions Mr Haydon has had experience in developing brands for Kraft and Cadbury, creating and implementing sales and marketing global best practice for Lion Nathan and as General Manager Marketing for Cerebos ANZ.

Robert is the Deputy Chair of the Australian Meat Industry Council, Chair of the National Retail Council and owner of Robert’s Meats in Singleton, NSW. 

Jason has worked at BRP for 21 years and has a total of 25 years in the pork industry.

Jason started at George Western Foods in the smallgoods department and then onto the slaughter floor. When the Nairne site closed and BRP opened, he started on the slaughtering team and then progressed to supervisor. After progressing up to Logistics manager he then became General Manager in 2016.

BRP is a fee for service operation which slaughters 17,000 pigs per week and bones 8,000 pigs for its shareholders. Some of BRP’s customers are Coles, GWF and Costco.

BRP employ over 350 for their site.

Patrick has been working within the Australian meat and livestock industry for most of his life. From operating a family cattle breeding and feeding business through to developing training programs for Livestock Agents, managing infrastructure systems in feedlots and saleyards in Australia, the USA and Canada, and working within the Australian live export industry.

Patrick started as a project officer with the Australian Meat Council on the same day a restructured red meat industry commenced, on 1 July 1998. Working with some of Australia’s major meat companies, Patrick formed alliances through advocacy on all issues relating to livestock. Patrick was then asked to head up the first iteration of integrity systems at Meat & Livestock Australia, in 2003. There he designed, developed and delivered some of Australia’s major livestock integrity programs, including livestock production insurance (LPA), national vendor declaration‘s (NVD), and the national livestock identification system (NLIS).

In 2011 he launched an Agricultural advisory business, including working for MLA in implementing new welfare and livestock management systems in Australian live export destinations throughout Southeast Asia. In 2014 he went back into commercial agribusiness, heading up the ITS global group. This innovative systems company included businesses in USA and Canada, with the Canadian software business handling data for over 1 million cattle in Canadian feedlots. In 2016 he came back to where it all begun with AMIC, firstly as GM Processing, and then on 1 July 2017 as CEO.

Emily Pullen is the CEO of Jim’s Jerky, based near Toowoomba. Founded in 2004 by her parents Jim & Cathie, Jim’s Jerky creates quality beef jerky, biltong and smallgoods from Australian beef. Now ranged with a number of national customers, Jim’s has also commenced the journey to becoming a successful exporter.

Before joining the family business, Emily’s career included working as an agronomist in rural Queensland, a role in the UK’s Department of Food, Environment & Rural Affairs’ Sustainable Development Commission, and with Red Tractor, the world’s largest full chain assurance scheme for food.

Emily believes the Australian beef industry can take a commanding stake in the huge national and international snacking market, and that strategic investment and innovation will lead to a broader home for Australian beef-based products. Emily sits on AMICs National Smallgoods Council and is mum to Evie and Tom.

As Chief Operating Officer, Bruce Sabatta is responsible for the Primo Foods business, leading a team of over 2300 employees across Australia and New Zealand (Beehive). Primo Foods is a part of the JBS Australia Group of businesses and Bruce sits as an Executive Director on the JBS Australia Board. Bruce has Oxford University business studies, underpinned by an MBA and over 15 years of business unit leadership experience along with Board appointments.

Bruce has a strong passion for the food industry with over 30 years of food industry leadership experience, starting this journey at South Africa’s Pioneer Foods, one of the country’s largest producers of branded FMCG products and within Australia at Goodman Fielder and Allied Mills a Cargill/GrainCorp joint venture.  This leadership experience is across operations, sales, strategy, business development, M&A, supply chain and business unit leadership.

Dr Robert Smits has been part of the Australian pork industry for over 35 years. Commencing his career in animal nutrition in WA, Rob moved to a research management role with Rivalea (then Bunge Meat Industries) in the 1990’s. Rivalea has the largest private research and innovation group in the Australian pork industry, and he led the companies R&I program for 7 years. Rob’s interest has extended far into the pork supply chain and includes processing efficiency, meat quality, value adding and new product development in pork. Working now for the industry peak body APL, Rob has continued to be involved in one of the biggest challenges facing the pig industry – biosecurity threat. He is a participant on the AUSVETPLAN FMD Manual Writing Group, part of the ASF Razorback exercises and he and APL are heavily involved in farm, abattoir and transport biosecurity strategies.

Will joined Associated British Foods in 2006 as Marketing Director for Twinings Australia where he progressed to Managing Director in 2014, before moving to George Weston Foods in 2018 taking on his current role of Managing Director of DON.

Will started his career in FMCG as a graduate at Nestle in the UK , he then moved to United Biscuits in the UK where he held a number of executive roles leaving the business as Marketing Director of Snacks in 2006 to join Twinings in Australia.

Will has extensive experience in the food and beverage business across Australia, New Zealand, UK and Asia, and holds a BA (Hons) in Business & post graduate qualifications in Marketing.

Mary heads up the Processor group, supporting members across processors; boning rooms; cold stores; and non-packer exporters. The team represents member interests across a diverse portfolio of industry matters, ranging from livestock policy and issues management (including animal biosecurity, traceability, and welfare) through to on-plant operations, product integrity, food safety, industry standards, regulatory affairs, and trade and market access.

Mary has a degree in Veterinary Science and post-graduate tertiary qualifications in public administration. Mary has worked on meat industry matters since 2009, predominantly in senior market access roles in the Commonwealth Government, prior to joining AMIC in 2017. Mary has represented Australia in international forums, including as a delegate at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and has served in Ministerial appointments on statutory committees.