Dianne Jacob, Food Writing Coach 
Dianne Jacob is the author of Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More. The first edition won the Cordon D’Or International award for Best Literary Food Reference Book in 2005. The second edition won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award in 2010 for best book in the world in its category.
Her blog, Will Write for Food: Pithy Snippets about Food Writing, covers food writing trends and technique. The New York Times, Publishers’ Weekly, Chow, Eater, BlogHer, and Food52 News have picked up her posts. She started the blog in 2009 as a way to update her book, which features an extensive chapter on food blogging.
Dianne is also co-author of the cookbook Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas, with chef Craig Priebe, and she edits cookbooks for national publishers and individuals.
Previously a newspaper, magazine, and publishing company editor-in-chief, Dianne became a full-time writing coach, author, and freelance editor in 1996. She coaches writers across the US, Canada, Europe and Asia on writing and publishing books, freelance articles, and blogs. She also edits manuscripts and has helped people go through the publishing process.
Dianne judges books for the James Beard Foundation and for the International Association of Culinary Professionals annual cookbook awards. She has also been a judge for the Bert Greene Award for Food Journalism. A feature she wrote about food blogs was a finalist for a Bert Greene award in 2007.
She has written feature articles for Salon.com, Sunset, Clean Eating, Gastronomica, and Writer’s Digest.
Dianne has taught classes on food writing for more than12 years, including at the Smithsonian Institute and UCLA’s Journalism Department. For five years she ran the Food Writing Symposium at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA. She has been a featured speaker at BlogHer and BlogHer Food, the International Food Blogger Conference, Food Blog South, and at the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference.
Simon Bryant, chef, author and TV presenter 
Simon Bryant is a face well known to regional and urban Australia as he and South Australian food icon Maggie Beer are beamed into thousands of lounge rooms and kitchens via the ABC program ‘The Cook & the Chef’. The show aired more than 150 episodes over four years, attracting more than 600,000 viewers nationally each week.
Originally a motor mechanic by trade, Simon returned to study and while working in the university kitchen to earn some extra cash and studying economics at Melbourne University. Simon realised he’d rather wear a chef’s hat than a business suit. He eventually ended up as Adelaide Hilton’s Executive Chef overseeing 55 kitchen staff and 1000 meals daily in Hilton’s two restaurants and South Australia’s largest hotel conference and events facility.
Simon passionately believes in using his profile to highlight ethical food issues, including paying fair prices to producers for ethically produced food, using local seasonal food with less environmental impact, the use of Australian native foods, and in particular, the ethical treatment of animals in the food chain.
Simon is currently an ambassador for the Animal Welfare League SA, Animals Asia Foundation, The Department of Environment and Heritage Kitchen Garden Foundation and patron for the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market ‘Kids Club’.
Paul Bullock, Anthony Mason Chambers 
Paul Bullock is an Adelaide barrister based at Anthony Mason Chambers on Victoria Square.
Before moving to the bar, Paul was a Senior Associate at leading Adelaide law firm Kelly & Co. Lawyers and an associate to Justice Anthony Besanko in the Federal Court of Australia.
Paul specialises in commercial litigation, and has worked extensively in defamation matters, media law and copyright.
He also holds an Honours Degree in Computer Science from the University of Adelaide and has experience in programming and website development.
He is a keen amateur photographer with an interest in the legal issues associated with photography.
Ed Charles, Tomato
Ed Charles’s food blog, Tomato, is one of the originals in Australia having been founded in 2005 and since then he has grown to become influential on Twitter with some 7,000+ followers.
He regularly speaks and broadcasts on food and social media issues and now runs the digital marketing and content agency Tomato Media, working with some of Melbourne’s top restaurants and chefs in addition to other small and medium-sized businesses.
He was a driving force behind the first Eat Drink Blog and is co-founder of the Melbourne Fringe Food Festival.
Ed has reviewed for Gourmet Traveller and The Age Good Food Guide in addition to various restaurant competitions and caffeinated guides.
He had a regular food column in the Herald Sun and his food writing has been published in The Bulletin, The Australian, The Age, Gourmet Traveller, GQ, Selector Magazine and online for SBS Food and The Punch.
He currently reserves his food writing for his blog and spreads his criticism across various review sites in addition to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Jules Clancy, The Stone Soup 
Jules Clancy loves food especially veggies.
She has a degree in Food Science and is the author of 5 ingredients 10 minutes.
She’s the creator of Stonesoup, a blog about helping people make delicious, healthy meals in minutes.
Jules is a professional blogger, online cooking school teacher and author.
Shai Coggins, Studio Notes 
Shai Coggins is the Founder & Director of Vervely, a new digital communications and community engagement company based in Adelaide. She currently works with organisations like Microsoft Citizenship Asia Pacific and The Shannon Company New Zealand.
Prior to launching her business, she worked with a number of nonprofits and businesses in the field of communications, community, content, education, and psychology.
She was the first Web Logs expert at About.com (a New York Times company) and has co-founded a global blogging company called b5media, which was based in Toronto and raised over $10M in VC funding.
She has been featured in a number of publications and media including The Advertiser, SBS Radio, Reader’s Digest Australia, Manila Bulletin, and CNET Asia, among many others. She was named as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology (Blogging) by Fast Company (2009) and was in the Top 50 Most Influential Female Bloggers in NxE (2008).
Shai maintains a personal lifestyles blog where she shares her food adventures at Studio Notes. You can also join her on social media via Twitter among many others.
Christie Connelly, Fig & Cherry 
As well as all this (and because sleep is for the dead!) she also co-owns online marketing company, Morning Copy, writes another blog about motherhood, Poppy Seed Baby,
Even though she is only 4 foot 10 inches high, she has managed to work with some great local and international brands such as Vitasoy, Australian Mushroom Growers, Breville and Ocean Spray, plus meet and interview amazing chefs, farmers, home cooks, producers and food lovers from all across Australia and the world. Why not make yourself a cup of tea and drop by her blog today to indulge with pleasure! Careful though, it will make you very hungry.
Peter Georgakopoulos, Souvlaki For The Soul 
Peter is the chief recipe tester, stylist and photographer behind Souvlaki for the Soul.
He has been blogging for 5 1/2 years and have been photographing food and travel for the last three years in a professional capacity. In 2009 Souvlaki for the Soul was named by the Times London as one of the Top 50 food blogs in the world and in 2011 Saveur named Souvlaki for the Soul as a finalist for best culinary travel blog. He has nearly 4,000 subscribers.
Peters’ work has been featured in SBS’s Feast magazine and he also provides recipe development and photography for food organisations. Last year he ran the food styling class at the Australian Food Blogger’s conference in Sydney.
Tammi Jonas, Tammi Tasting Terroir 
Tammi Jonas is a cultural theorist nearing completion of a PhD examining the role of food and foodways in the development of a cosmopolitan, sustainable society.
As well as her blog and academic publications, Tammi occasionally writes for New Matilda, Crikey and The Hoopla, with a focus on the ethics of food production and consumption.
Last year, along with her partner and three ethically omnivorous children, Tammi became a farmer of rare breed Large Black pastured pigs.
She blogs at Tammi Tasting Terroir and Jonai Farms and bangs on about food politics on the twitterz as @tammois.
Geoff Kwitko, internet marketing consultant 
Geoff Kwitko is a web entrepreneur with an unbridled passion for internet marketing. From the tender age of 17 to 24 he founded and sold three successful businesses – an online media monitoring service with over 4,000 customers, an online Australian sharemarket discussion community with 22,000 members, and a web marketing and programming consulting firm with 8 staff.
Now after selling his own businesses, Geoff loves the thrill of taking other leading Australian brands to the next level. As a full time internet marketing consultant, Geoff implements campaigns that integrate online advertising, web design, lead collection, custom CRM programming, marketing funnel optimisation, e-commerce, social media, video marketing and more!
In his spare time, Geoff leads and mentors a community of over 900 young Australian tech entrepreneurs and web consultants called The Startup Club. In the spirit of giving back, Geoff has facilitated over 50 free Startup Club events and workshops for local entrepreneurs, including 3 day business seminars and a full day IT conferences.
Geoff loves reading and discussing food blogs with his girlfriend and is passionate about organic and sustainable food issues. He is a strong supporter of innovative organic food box services such as Jupiter Creek and Keanes Organic Food.
Grant Nowell, Photographer 
Grant has been a newspaper and magazine photographer for 40 years working around Australia and abroad. In 1990 he was appointed Pictorial Editor of The Advertiser and Sunday Mail giving creative and technical guidance to 35 photographers, The Advertiser was the first newspaper in Australia to print daily color, so his job was also steer the paper from the challenge of black and white publishing to full color.
In 1993 he was appointed senior Feature photographer, shooting and directing all the Food/ Wines images, Fashion, The Arts, architecture and all the magazine/ feature content for the papers.
After 20 years at News Limited he left to pursue a more gentle freelance career for various magazines and clients including The Adelaide Hills Mag, Sumptuous Magazine and Fairfax publications.
Major Awards he has won: South Australia Media Awards Feature Photographer of the Year 2004 2006 2007 2011, Nikon Showcase Photographer of the Year, Telstra Rural Photographer of the Year, Walkley Award Finalist, SA Media Awards Freelancer of the Year 2012, Moran Finalist 2012.
Major assignments he has covered include 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Royal Tours, Papal Tours, Grand Prix, Tasting Australia, and Federal and State elections.
Sandra Reynolds, $120 Food Challenge 
Sandra is a blogger, cookbook author, recipe developer and freelance food writer.
With deliciously dry humour and self-deprecating honesty Sandra began The $120 Food Challenge in March 2010 when unemployment forced her to feed her hungry teenagers for just $60 a week.
An enthusiastic but amateur cook with no previous experience of blogging, she started writing her recipes and menu ideas and immediately found interest from people who all wanted to feed their family well on a tiny budget. Within four months she was on national TV. Two months later she signed a book deal with Lantern Penguin and her first book, also called The $120 Food Challenge, was published in February 2012.
Sandra has been featured on Today Tonight, A Current Affair, ABC and commercial radio and a range of magazine articles including the cover story for Body and Soul, Super Food Ideas, Masterchef magazine, Cleo’s ‘blogs to watch’, Weight Watchers magazine, Good Living and Epicure magazines, New Idea, That’s Life! and many more. She has written for Mamamia and The Hoopla and contributes recipes for the Salvos weekly magazine, Warcry, and for commercial food producers.
She continues to write her blog, with more than 100,000 hits a month and more than 9000 Facebook and Twitter followers in more than 50 countries – all on word of mouth. She was one of Kidspot’s Top 5 bloggers in 2011. She still shops in Aldi every week.
Fiona Roberts, Fiona Roberts Food 
Fiona worked in Food and Drink PR/Marketing before training at the renowned Leith’s School of Food and Wine, in London.
Having travelled the world and working with some of the most influential food writers in the UK and Australia (Delia Smith, Donna Hay & Maggie Beer), Fiona now runs Fiona Roberts Food, a creative food consultancy based in Adelaide.
She cut her teeth working with leading food media organisations like ACP Books & Magazines, News Ltd, Pacific Magazines, Murdoch Books, Penguin, Hardie Grant Media, Channel Nine, ABC and New Crane Publishing.
Fiona consulted to Maggie Beer for over three years in New Product Development, producing several award winning products and was a researcher on series two of Poh’s Kitchen.
Working across different mediums including publishing (magazines/cookbooks), retail, point-of-sale, websites, advertising (print/television) and packaging she has broad food styling experience. Fiona contributes regular features to Sumptuous Magazine and The Adelaide Magazine and works with high profile brands including Coopers, Balfours, San Remo, Marion’s Kitchen, Le Cordon Bleu and Carême Pastry to name but a few.
She also studied at the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, in London, holds a Masters in Gastronomy and is a member of the Association of Food Professionals.
Rebecca Varidel, Inside Cuisine 
Rebecca Varidel is a taste and travel presenter, writer and photographer, who has worked as a Chef, in restaurants and then high end catering, as an artisan food producer and specialist food retailer. Her blog has an extensive readership and influence and showcases the best of Australian food to the world.
With a large global following as @frombecca on twitter, she is an avid advocate of online communities. Rebecca’s other regular roles include the food and wine expert on rescu.com.au with video interviews of Australian Chefs, providores and producers.
Perhaps though the role of which she is most proud is as the ambassador for Electrolux Appetite for Excellence: our ultimate national awards program for young hospitality professionals.
Where did it start? She can still remember the superior taste of the produce from her Aunty Dossie’s NSW dairy farm – life changing flavours from when she was three. That walk-in pantry of home preserved fruits, home baked biscuits daily and the hand-beaten ice cream from fresh unprocessed farm cream, created a life-long love of cookery.
“Nothing was bought except flour, sugar and tea.” This developed her commitment to the generosity of food that uses fresh local seasonal produce as its base. “I believe good food nourishes more than the body.”
Helen Yee, Grab Your Fork 
Helen Yee is the appetite behind one of Australia’s first and longest-running food blogs, Grab Your Fork , which first began in April 2004.
Known for her love of cheap and cheerful cuisine, Helen now writes a monthly column for Time Out Sydney with a brief to uncover hidden gems in the suburbs. Her cover story for the April 2012 issue of Time Out Sydney unearthed 25 Cheap Eats around Sydney for Under $15.
Helen is also Cheap Eats editor for the 2012 Eating and Drinking Sydney guide and a primary contributor to the Food Lovers Guide to Chinatown and Haymarket, Sydney.
A big believer of nose-to-tail eating, Helen happily counts deep fried intestines, crumbed brains and sweetbreads as some of her greatest pleasures. She also likes bacon. And deep fried chicken. Lots of deep fried chicken.
Helen is a regular guest on 702 Weekends on ABC Radio. Her work has been published in the essay anthology, Voracious: The Best New Australian Food Writing. In 2011 she was a finalist for Best Food Blog in the Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards.