The world's your market session - 5 January 2017

Jack Hamilton (pictured) has been named Top New Talent by The Grocer magazine. He describes himself as the sixth generation of the soil and grew up on the County Down family farm that would diversify to become Mash Direct in 2004.  Mash Direct has since grown from delivering mashed potato to one local retailer into the brand leader in the prepped vegetables category in the UK and Ireland as well as exporting to the USA, UAE and Bahrain.

Jack will speak in the 'World is your market session', sponsored by Openfield, at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday 5 January. He will be joined by Ali Capper, who farms in partnership at Stocks Farm, Suckley, Worcestershire with her husband Richard and his father Mark. The Cappers specialise in growing hops and apples. They farm 82 hectares of dessert & cider apples and hops. Ali’s former career was in Advertising & Marketing. Today, in addition to numerous roles at the farm, her work includes membership of the Boards of the British Hop Association, Wye Hops, the Hop Industry Committee, the Norton Cider Growers Association and as Chairman of the NFU's National Horticulture & Potatoes Board. Ali is a Nuffield Scholar, a Trustee of FACE and The Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust.

The session's other speaker is Tom Hind, Chief Strategy Officer at the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), where he’s responsible for developing the organisation’s strategy to help farmers and growers succeed. Tom spent over 15 years at the NFU working in a range of roles including Head of Economics, Corporate Affairs Director and leading the UK NFU’s lobbying efforts in Brussels. Before joining AHDB Tom held the position of Agriculture Director at Tesco.