World Coffee Innovation Awards 2025 | FoodBev Awards
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The Judging Panel

World Coffee Innovation Awards 2025

Francois Knopes

Francois Knopes

Manager / Coffee Quality Advisor, The Independent Coffee Lab

François is the manager of the Independent Coffee Lab in London, and a freelance coffee consultant. He is, alongside his two siblings, the 4th generation of coffee roasters in his family that have been roasting since 1936.


Fascinated by the speciality coffee movement after watching the 2006 World Barista Championship in Bern, he started roasting that same year at the age of 19. He has since then delivered well over 20,000 commercial batches, and trained countless baristas and coffee roasters. With close to 20 years of experience in the coffee industry, François has extensive knowledge as a green coffee buyer, roaster, barista, café manager, business owner, coffee competitor and coffee consultant. As well as many years of work within his family business, Knopes Artisan Torréfacteur in Belgium and Luxembourg, he has also worked with a variety of renowned coffee companies, Ripe Coffee in New Zealand as well as Taylor St Baristas and Perky Blenders Coffee Roasters in the United Kingdom.

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Jessica Munro

Jessica Munro

Beverage Expert, Monin

Jessica has worked in the Food and Beverage industry for 15 years across a variety of roles, each one helping to guide and build her in-depth understanding and knowledge of all things drink related. Her work with MONIN has seen her develop hundreds of beverages for National Account chains across the coffee sector and the On-Trade. Since joining the MONIN Beverage Expert team, she works with customers across the globe and helps MONIN distributor partners with training, trend research and custom menu creation, delivering quality and continent at scale. She excels at identifying current and future trends, recognising the significance of consumer demands and delivers those insights to decision makers in the industry with confidence. Prior to MONIN, Jessica worked for various drinks brands for 7 years and holds many years of experience working On Trade in the Beverage industry, to which she credits her fascination and approach to innovation today.
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John Richardson

John Richardson

Founder, The Cafe Experts

John Richardson has spent over 30 years as an owner of a wide range of coffee shops, restaurants, fast food outlets and at one stage was selling over 7000 sandwiches per day via 6 shops and a dedicated food production facility. He has directly employed nearly 1000 people within the industry. For the past 17 years he has also acted as a business consultant and coach to the coffee shop industry and has written three best-selling books on setting up and running profitable cafes and coffee shops. He has clients throughout Europe, the US and Australia and has advised Gordon Ramsay, the NHS and thousands of independent coffee shops through his online programmes and direct consulting.
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Rafaela Sousa

Rafaela Sousa

Editor, FoodBev Media

Rafaela is the assistant editor at FoodBev Media and Refreshment magazine, a publication that focuses on the water, coffee and vending industries. Rafaela enjoys keeping up to date with the latest trends and developments in the food and beverage sector, particularly plant-based and functional applications. From bakery to botanicals, plant-based to packaging, functional foods to flavours, Rafaela has written about it all! She is excited to see products that fall within the milk alterative category, as well as flavouring innovations and products.
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Stuart Haden

Stuart Haden

Coffee Expert, JDE Coffee

A passion for creating amazing coffee experiences. With more than 34 years in the industry, I started my coffee journey with Kraft Jacobs Suchard and have spent my career researching and absorbing coffee information to expand my knowledge of the industry. Self-taught, I understands the importance of staying abreast of new developments in the fast moving, changing world of hot beverages. A driving force behind JDE’s ambition to be both a category and thought leader within the industry, I offer best in class training, sharing an understanding of instant coffee through to the complexity of delivering a traditional cappuccino. My passion for sharing industry insights is matched by my love for the diverse and complex nature of coffee, be it roast whole beans or powdered instants. Along with being responsible for the UK&I, I also am mentor withing the JDE Global training team responsible for creating and delivering our global coffee training programme.
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