Cardiff Metropolitan University has appointed three new members to its ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre, a Welsh Government and EU-funded strategic project that provides eligible Welsh food and drink companies with a range of support.

Lee Pugh, Lucy Llewellyn and Sergio Ardu will join the team on Project HELIX, which is described as a pan-Wales strategic initiative delivered by Food Innovation Wales’ at the University. The project is designed to help eligible companies with new product development support, technical information, new business start-up help, food legislation and product reformulation assistance.

Lee Pugh has over 40 years’ baking industry experience in new product development (NPD) and technical sales for organisations across the UK and worldwide. In his new role as head of baking, Pugh will support bakery companies with NPD and also lead the development of industry opportunities for Cardiff Metropolitan University’s food science and technology students.

He said: “I’m looking forward to forging new and strengthening existing relationships between ZERO2FIVE and ingredient suppliers, equipment manufacturers and bakery companies across Wales and beyond to help them develop innovative new products which add value to high quality Welsh primary produce and solve industry challenges such as food waste reduction.”

Lucy Llewellyn joins ZERO2FIVE’s new product development team from industry where she spent over eight years, most recently as Marks & Spencer development manager. As part of ZERO2FIVE’s NPD team, Llewellyn will support food and drink companies from concept to launch with recipe development, ingredient sourcing, sensory analysis, shelf life optimisation and legal-labelling.

Speaking of her new appointment, Llewellyn said: “I’m looking forward to working with both small and large food and drink companies across a range of categories. Having worked with some of the largest retailers, I can help client companies develop new products which satisfy supermarket buyer demands.”

Sergio Ardu also joins the team with over fifteen years’ technical manager experience in areas such as third-party accreditation (including BRCGS and SALSA), internal auditing, HACCP, microbiology, health and safety, and food safety and security.

Professor David Lloyd, director at ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre said: “It’s great to have Lee, Lucy and Sergio join the ZERO2FIVE team and bolster the range of technical support we can provide. Our mission is to provide food and drink companies with the support they need to be more competitive in an increasingly challenging marketplace. With these new appointments we can increase our capacity to do that.”