Impact & Influence

The term “influencer” is bandied about frequently these days, often referring to social media superstars whose antics on TikTok or Instagram have propelled them into the limelight. For this feature article, we thought about it a little differently, focusing attention on individuals whose actions and insights have had a significant positive impact on the food system, but whose contributions may not be widely known.

Our influencers represent varied disciplines, and their professional priorities and projects are diverse. What they have in common, however, is passion, curiosity, creativity, and a commitment to making a difference.

The Advocate

Chef Ann Cooper, founder and president, Chef Ann Foundation

Vital Statistics

• Credentials: AOS, Culinary, The Culinary Institute of America
• Recognition: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow; member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board; honorary doctorate, SUNY Cobleskill; honored by the National Resources Defense Council
• Writings: “A Woman’s Place Is in The Kitchen”: The Evolution of Women Chefs, Wiley, 1998; Bitter Harvest, Routledge, 2000; In Mother’s Kitchen: Celebrated Women Chefs Share Beloved Family Recipes, Rizzoli, 2005; Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children, HarperCollins, 2006
• LinkedIn: ift-linkedin.com/chef-ann-cooper

Ann Cooper doesn’t mince words about what she saw in 2005, when she arrived as director of nutrition services at Berkeley Unified School District in Berkeley, Calif.

“There was no real food,” says the chef, author, and advocate for children’s nutrition. “There were very few fruits and vegetables. It was pizza pockets, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese sandwiches in a plastic bag, and it went downhill from there.”

No doubt, it was a shock to the system for a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, who’d spent the first 20 years of her career cooking for upscale hotels, cruise ships, and tony celebrity parties in venues like Telluride and backstage for the Grateful Dead.

Along the way, Cooper established herself as an early pioneer of farm-to-table cooking and critic of the modern food supply. Her 2000 book, Bitter Harvest, caught the attention of billionaire Courtney Ross, who was launching a progressive school in East Hampton, N.Y. “She wanted to remake education from the ground up at this school, and one of the pillars was going to be healthy eating,” Cooper says.

At the Ross School, Cooper enjoyed almost unlimited resources and discretion to create menus, re-craft vendor relationships, and infuse food into science and social studies curricula. School administrators in New York and other cities came to observe, as did other chefs, like Alice Waters, who convinced Cooper to come west and join her Chez Panisse Foundation, laying the groundwork for Cooper’s later work in public schools, including Berkeley, and Boulder, Colo.

During her nearly four-year stint, the self-described “renegade lunch lady” flipped Berkeley’s foodservice program from serving 95% processed convenience foods to almost all scratch cooking, nearly a quarter from raw ingredients sourced through local vendors.

Cooper launched her namesake foundation in 2008, which supports U.S. school districts through grant programs that encourage scratch-cooked meals and fresh, whole foods. To date, the foundation has supported nearly 5,000 schools, representing 2.2 million children.

Supporters say Cooper has impacted how the public, government, and industry talk about the role of food in schools and children’s lives. “Chef Ann urges all of us in the business of feeding children to imagine what we can and should do if the values we espouse are at the center of our work every day,” says Arlin Wasserman, managing director, Changing Tastes and 2002 W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Fellow.

“With obesity and nutrition-related health issues growing, Chef Ann’s work is more critical than ever. If we are ever to truly solve some of these avoidable issues, education and a greater appreciation for the impact of what we eat on who we are and how we function needs to start with children,” says Menu Matters President Maeve Webster.

While she isn’t shy about expressing her disdain for convenience foods, Cooper insists that she is not anti-industry. “Efficiency through technology is really important,” Cooper says. “Let’s take basic processing technology—freezing, drying, all those kinds of things, but maintain a certain degree of being able to take those components and still be able to make different things out of it, as opposed to the idea of everything being a finished product.”

The Inventor

Gabriel Ifeanyi Okafor, head of the Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria

Vital Statistics

• Credentials: MSc and PhD, Food Technology/Food Process Engineering, Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies
• Research: Food processing/storage; food regulation, packaging, and fortification; risk assessment; nutraceuticals; and herbal teas, among many others
• Outside Interests: Traveling, farming, and watching films and analyzing them critically
• LinkedIn: ift-linkedin.com/gabriel-ifeanyi-okafor

Nigerian food science and technology professor Gabriel Ifeanyi Okafor has been thinking about how to improve the food system since his childhood days. It started, he recalls, when as a seven-year-old, he was tasked with manually pounding ogbono (Irvingia gabonensis or African wild mango) seeds into a flour to be used in making soup, using a mortar and pestle. The tedious process took hours for a small boy to accomplish, and Okafor remembers thinking that there had to be a better way.

Today, as head of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and editor-in-chief of the Nigerian Food Journal, Okafor is still looking for ways to better the food system and to help improve life in Africa’s largest nation.

After high school, Okafor received a scholarship to study in Astrakhan, a port city in Russia, where he spent a year learning the language before beginning food technology studies at Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies in Ukraine. He spent eight years in Odessa, graduating with a doctoral degree in 1994 and then making the decision to return home to Nigeria. “I wanted to contribute—to make life better for people,” he reflects.

In addition to leading the department at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Okafor teaches and mentors graduate students. He’s a prolific inventor and product developer with five patent applications in progress in Nigeria and two patents awarded in Russia.

One of his most significant innovations is a mechanized system for tapping oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis) sap, a raw material with potential applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries. He also designed a device that reduces the drying time of harvested whole ginger rhizomes by 50%, making the drying process more efficient.

On the product formulation front, Okafor has developed ready-to-eat cereals that are effective in reducing blood sugar and serum cholesterol in lab rats; teas made from local vegetables; and ready-to-eat snacks from corn and several fruits that are popular with Nigerians. He also developed a raisin analogue from ripe plantains, which is valuable because most African countries import raisins for use in baked goods.

“Professor Okafor has passion for food processing, product development, and design and fabrication of food engineering equipment,” says Francis Chigozie Okoyeuzu, a lecturer in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, noting that his list of product development and equipment design innovations is a long one. In addition, Okoyeuzu praises Okafor’s commitment to “upgrading local food processing technologies.”

Although Okafor has no shortage of bright ideas, finding partners to help commercialize them has often been difficult in Nigeria, a country that faces economic challenges and insecurity. His goal for the future is “to champion value-addition technologies for assorted foods in the African continent.”

The Catalyst

Shannon Schlecht, executive director of the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute

Vital Statistics

• Credentials: BS, MS, Agricultural Economics, North Dakota State University
• Career Track: Formerly vice president of policy for U.S. Wheat Associates
• Current Additional Roles: Director for the Ag Innovation Campus, advisor to the University of Minnesota Food Science and Nutrition Department, MBOLD Executive Council, trustee for the North Dakota State University Foundation
• Outside Interests: Running, downhill skiing, travel
• Words to Live By: “What is the legacy ‘you’ vs. the LinkedIn ‘you’?”
• LinkedIn: ift-linkedin.com/shannon-schlecht

As a North Dakota farm kid who studied agricultural economics and then spent 14 years in the wheat industry covering everything from biotechnology in Washington, D.C., to global trade policy in Africa and the Middle East, Shannon Schlecht has developed an extraordinary ability to implement agriculture as a solution. As the executive director of the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI), a unique Minnesota-based entity started by the state legislature nearly 35 years ago, Schlecht leads a team of business developers, applied research scientists, and other professionals in utilizing local crops to create new market opportunities and economic growth for the area.

Schlecht’s deep understanding of the industry’s technical and business challenges is what drives his lasting impact as a busy nonprofit executive. Last year alone, his team supported over 250 projects, working hand in hand with local businesses on value-added products for the commercial marketplace—from new food formulations, to process improvements, to biobased and renewable energy opportunities, to innovations that valorize waste streams.The team moves quickly, scaling ideas for a range of entities, from producers to early-stage businesses to cooperatives and other agribusinesses. Increasingly, AURI is working with post-accelerator brands, as well, to support next-stage development, and the team’s educational resources and research initiatives help fill in common questions and knowledge gaps for the broader industry.

“The breadth of AURI’s expertise, ability to foster connections, and its forward-looking initiatives help accelerate market opportunities for businesses throughout the state and region,” says JoAnne Berkenkamp, managing director, MBOLD, a coalition of Minnesota-based business leaders and innovators working collaboratively with AURI.

Another partner, Allison Hohn, executive director at Naturally Minnesota, calls AURI a “vital collaborator” that advances Minnesota’s food and agriculture ecosystem across a variety of entrepreneurial efforts. “AURI is often one of the first introductions we make for the hundreds of entrepreneurs that we connect with,” she says.

For Schlecht, steering Minnesota’s food and agriculture community toward an entrepreneurial mindset is all about bringing together the many touchpoints and perspectives, and then building meaningful networks “so you can refer people to the right resources at the right time,” he says. As the leader of a fast-paced, results-oriented organization, Schlecht balances today’s growth needs and projects with an eye on future innovations, constantly asking his team, “Can we see around the corners? What can become an impactful opportunity three to five years from now?”

The Researcher

Denise Skonberg, professor of food science, University of Maine

Vital Statistics

• Credentials: BS, Animal Science (aquaculture concentration), UC Davis; MS, Food Science, University of Washington; PhD, Fisheries (aquaculture nutrition concentration), University of Washington
• Career Track: Research consultant; fisheries extension agent, U.S. Peace Corps, Thailand
• Research: Seafood science, with a focus on byproduct utilization and value-added product development
• Outside Interests: Anything outdoors (rock climbing, canoeing, camping, swimming), fruit and vegetable gardening, reading sci-fi, road tripping
• Words to Live By: “The best things in life aren’t things.”
• LinkedIn: ift-linkedin.com/denise-skonberg

Long before “seafood sustainability” was a household buzzword, Denise Skonberg, professor of food science at the University of Maine, was making an outsized impact on the state’s aquaculture ecosystem. Twenty-five years ago, she founded the school’s seafood lab, a mission-driven initiative that supports economic and environmental sustainability in the aquatic realm.

There’s no doubt seafood is important to the state of Maine, and Skonberg’s commitment to sustainability and reducing waste has been steadfast since she came to the university. At first, the lab had a narrower focus, such as studying the effects of feed on farmed finfish quality. Later her research incorporated shellfish processing and decreasing crab processing waste. In time, her interest expanded into invasive species product development, with a major project in the works for an innovative American fermented fish sauce using the green crab. “We’re at the forefront of the ‘eat the invader’ movement,” she explains.

In the past few years, her research has increasingly turned to all things seaweed. Kelp culture is a huge area of growth for Maine, but there’s been little research outside of Asia into Western consumer preferences, or quality and processing specific to this region. “We’re starting from scratch,” she says.

The ocean has called to Skonberg ever since she was a child in Hawaii, where she dreamed of being a marine biologist. She studied aquaculture at the University of California, Davis, then traveled to Thailand with the U.S. Peace Corps after graduation to work with local aquaculture fisheries. The experience got her interested in fish feeds and their impact on the final product.

“That’s when I first heard of food science,” she says. Her curiosity led her to a PhD in aquaculture nutrition and ultimately to the University of Maine, where she splits her time between research and teaching. She particularly enjoys being part of a smaller-sized food science program, where she has many opportunities to engage one-on-one with students in the lab, the classroom, and product development activities.

“She is such a dedicated professor, so committed to teaching and coaching her students,” notes Tamanna Ramesh, a graduate of the master’s food science program and current senior scientist of processing and packaging at The Kraft Heinz Co.

Looking ahead, Skonberg wants to do more with value-added seafood, using minimal processing to create more convenient product innovations. “Let’s convince Americans that seafood doesn’t have to be hard to prepare,” she says. “We’re in the early days. There’s a lot more work to be done.”

The Flavorist

Marie Wright, chief global flavorist and president, Creation, Design & Development, ADM

Vital Statistics

• Credentials: BSc Hons (First Class), Food Science and Chemistry, King’s College London; Certified Flavorist
• Recognition: British Society of Flavourists’ Bill Littlejohn Award, Women Worth Watching in STEM Award, WFFC Flavorist Recognition Award
• Outside Interests: Family, food and wine, architecture, real estate, skiing, running, swimming, holidays in France, the New York Rangers hockey team, and Manchester United
• Words to Live By: “Anything is possible, but always be humble and kind.”
• LinkedIn: ift-linkedin.com/marie-wright

After training for years to be a flavorist while working at Bush Boake Allen (acquired by International Flavors & Fragrances), it was a pâté flavor she created that sealed the deal for Marie Wright. “It was just so authentic,” explains Wright. “I was on cloud nine. It was the realization that I knew how to do this, and it’s magic and it’s exciting.” That “magic” has driven Wright’s passion for creating flavors across categories—from beverages to sweet and savory, and even animal nutrition and pet food. If she had to guess, Wright estimates she has created more than 2,500 different flavors thus far in her 30-plus years as a flavorist.

Growing up in England, Wright says her love for food and flavor developed thanks to her multicultural family and not the English food that “wasn’t too nice in those days.” Between a Turkish father, a mother with Italian heritage, and summers spent in France, Wright’s love for culinary blossomed along with her love for science. After working at International Flavors & Fragrances, Wright joined Wild Flavors as chief global flavorist in 2011. She continued in her role after ADM acquired the company in 2014. Since then, Wright has worked her way up the ranks and now leads a team of more than 700 scientists around the world working to deliver on ADM’s mission to “feed the world sustainably.” And while she may not be sitting at the bench all the time anymore, Wright is still very much a flavorist. After all, “it’s hard to teach if I’m not still doing it,” she says.

Being a mentor and teacher have become just as vital to Wright’s career as designing flavors. “She is a creative academic at heart,” says Jessica Kidwell, vice president of Global Beverage Creation, Design & Development at ADM. “That truly is, I think, as much of her inspiration as food and flavor are.”

In 2013, Wright founded ADM’s Academy of Future Flavorists to help further develop young flavorists in the industry. “I feel very lucky that throughout my career I’ve always had coaches and mentors or people that I’ve looked up to and admired that have helped me, and in turn now, I am doing it myself,” says Wright. From Caroline Davis, who taught her early on how to find and release the artistry in flavor creation through to her current boss, Vince Macciocchi, who has emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship, Wright acknowledges that there is always more for her to learn. “I’m still learning, and I still have coaches and mentors because I believe I can still be better,” she says. “That’s the thing about being a flavorist—every day is different. With every flavor you make you learn something new, which is why I love it and why we [flavorists] get hooked.”

Omnivore Podcast

ADM’s Marie Wright shares her journey as a flavorist in her 30-plus year career.

Selecting the Influencers

Choosing individuals to include in this feature was an informal process based on input from members of IFT divisions and resource groups and our contributing editors. The list was narrowed by the editorial team and then vetted by the Food Technology Editorial Advisory Panel. If you have suggestions of “influencers” for future coverage, please let us know.