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Sheila Dillon comes from Hoghton, Lancashire. She has been a food journalist for almost three decades, beginning work as an editor and writer at the New York based magazine, Food Monitor.

She has been part of The Food Programme since 1987, first as reporter, then producer and now presenter. Her futuristic documentary, Sitopia, based on Carolyn Steel’s book about a world shaped around food, won gold in the 2021 UK Publisher Podcast Awards.

In the late 1980s and 90s she and Derek Cooper covered the breaking scandal of BSE, the rise of GM foods, the growth of the organic movement from muck and magic to multi-million pound business, the birth of the World Trade Organisation and irradiation at a time when those subjects were not even a gleam in a newshound´s eye.

Recent programmes on food in care homes and the government's The National Food Strategy carry on the tradition. She is also the creator of Radio 4's first interactive grocery show, Veg Talk.

In January 2008 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by City University for her work, which, the citation says, "has changed the way in which we think about food."

Dan Saladino honed his journalistic skills in a range of different ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio and television newsrooms and then on Radio 4’s investigative series Face the Facts before joining the Food Programme in 2007 and specialising in food and farming stories. Since then he has tasted wild honey with hunter-gatherers in Africa and travelled to Venezuela in search of the world’s best chocolate.

Dan has been listed in the ‘Progress 1000: The Evening Standard’s Most Influential People in Food and Drink’, The Telegraph’s Food Power List and is the recipient of aJames Beard Awards (America’s most high-profile award for food journalism).

He has won multiple awards for his radio work (including the Guild of Food Writers and the Fortnum and Mason Awards), including his efforts to document the loss of biodiversity around the world, in which he has travelled through Europe, Asia and the Americas recording the world’s most endangered foods and the disappearance of traditional and indigenous food cultures. His first book, Eating to Extinction: The World’s Most Endangered Foods is an epic journey into the history, culture and future of food. It has been awarded The Jane Grigson Trust prize for a debut food book, awarded book of the year by Italy’s leading newspaper, Corriere Della Serra and shortlisted in 2022 the Andre Simon Awards. He lives in Cheltenham but his roots are in Sicily (which is where he recorded his first edition of The Food Programme).

Leyla is a food and travel presenter, broadcaster, journalist and digital creator. She has been a presenter on the Food Programme since 2019 and is a critic on ´óÏó´«Ã½ One’s MasterChef: The Professionals.

Leyla comes from a science education with an Astrophysics BSc from University College London and has a mixed-heritage Turkish Cypriot and Mauritian background. Having been brought up with exceptional cooking and appreciating the huge range of flavours available in the culinary world, she travels to eat and spent 2015 on one big trip, eating her way around the globe. She drew on her catalogue of culinary experiences to co-create Lonely Planet’s book: The Ultimate Eatlist, The World’s Top 500 Food Experiences.

Leyla’s interests and expertise lie in food, travel and celebrating the beauty and diversity of the natural world in the UK and beyond, including gardening, sustainability, permaculture, farming and food production, food preservation and food cultures and traditions.

is the Head Brewer of East London based micro Wild Card Brewery. Combining expertise in engineering, mathematics, logistics and a love of all things beer, she has been leading the brewing team at Wild Card since 2012. Jaega is listed within London's one thousand most influential figures in the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 as well as Brewer of the Year in 2018.

Hailing from Nottingham City, Jaega holds a Chemical Engineering Degree and has worked in Water Treatment and International Chemical Trading. She is a member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers and regularly brews with the ladies of the Venus Project, which aims to promote women in brewing through education & collaborative brewing.

She is also a presenter alongside James Blunt for Amazon Prime’s Beer Masters which sees the two search for 'Europe's next great beer'.