Last updated: 14-07-2026

Key People in the Hybrid Foods Space: The 2026 Names Behind Europe's Retail, Ingredient, and Policy Shift

Hybrid foods do not move from concept to shelf through one function alone. Retail buyers, ingredient technologists, brand builders, and policy researchers each hold a piece of the decision, and knowing who sits where saves a formulation team months of cold outreach. Below is a working map of the people currently shaping the category, drawn from FoodConNext Foundation's own Hybrid Foods Europe speaker roster.

Who Actually Decides Whether a Hybrid Product Reaches Shelf?

A hybrid product's path to market runs through five distinct functions — retail category management, ingredient technology, brand and manufacturing, consumer and policy research, and market intelligence — each held by different people who rarely sit in the same room. Hybrid Foods Europe exists specifically to put them there together; the names below are a starting map for anyone building a hybrid partnership network in 2026.

Retail and Category Leaders Setting the Agenda

Chantal Goenee (CSR, Lidl) and Henk van Os (Consultant Taste & Composition, Albert Heijn) sit closest to the shelf decision, translating hybrid formulation work into positioning, claims, and category-calendar slots. Goenee's collaboration with Wageningen University on consumer positioning research shows how retail and academic research increasingly run as joint projects rather than sequential handoffs.

Retail's involvement is the clearest signal that hybrid has moved past pilot stage. When a retailer's CSR and taste-and-composition functions are both actively researching a category, that category has already cleared the internal business case most new formats never reach.

Ingredient and Formulation Specialists Solving the Technical Problem

Niels Hower (Beneo), Roland Snel (ADM), Christopher Busch (Crespel & Deiters), and Fabian Griens (Cosun Beet Company) represent the ingredient side of hybrid formulation, each working a different functionality angle — texturisation, protein sourcing, wheat-and-pea blends, and sugar-beet-derived fibres. Beneo's own published view frames the current question as no longer if hybrid meat works commercially, but how to position it correctly once it does (Beneo, 2026).

These four sit at the point where a formulation brief either survives contact with cost and taste reality or doesn't. Any hybrid ingredient conversation that skips this layer is discussing strategy without discussing feasibility.

Brand, Manufacturing, and Formulation Voices Scaling Hybrid Products

Jakob Skovgaard (PlanetDairy), Vincent van Kuijen (Hilton Foods Holland), Hans Zijlstra (Farm Dairy), Dennis Favier (Fava Studio), and Jochen Matzer (Red Rabbit) are the people turning formulation work into commercial-scale, shelf-ready hybrid meat and dairy products. Between them they cover dairy brand-building, meat co-manufacturing, dairy quality and technology, dairy formulation studio work, and hybrid meat brand development.

This group is where formulation and retail requirements actually meet production capacity — the layer most often missing from a hybrid strategy built purely on ingredient science or consumer data.

Policy, Research, and Consumer-Behaviour Voices

Marleen Onwezen (Professor of Consumer Behaviour, Wageningen University), Joanna Trewern and Martine van Haperen (ProVeg International and ProVeg Nederland), Stella Hoynalanmaa (Director Food Programme, WWF), and Nico Muzi (Co-Founder, Madre Brava) shape whether consumers and retailers accept hybrid products at all. Onwezen's published research on consumer decision-making already informs the Lidl-Wageningen positioning project referenced above; Madre Brava works directly with European supermarkets on protein-mix commitments, while ProVeg International runs corporate engagement programmes with major retail and brand partners.

This group's influence is easy to underestimate because it rarely appears on a P&L. It decides, instead, whether the P&L gets a fair test in front of real shoppers.

Market Intelligence and Community Builders

Ananda Roy (Circana), Laura Goossens-van den Heuvel (Eurofins Food Safety Solutions), and FoodConNext Foundation's own Gerard Klein Essink and Jaap Harkema close the loop — supplying demand data, compliance clearance, and the convening structure that gets the other four groups in the same room. Roy tracks consumer demand trends across plant-based and hybrid formats; Goossens-van den Heuvel's compliance work determines what a hybrid product can legally claim before it reaches Onwezen's positioning research or Goenee's category calendar.

Table: Key People by Value-Chain Segment

Take-Home Messages

Commercial:

• Retail involvement from both CSR and taste-and-composition functions is the clearest signal a hybrid category has cleared its internal business case.

• Ingredient specialists across texturisation, protein sourcing, and fibre functionality determine whether a formulation brief survives cost reality.

• Brand and manufacturing leaders are the layer most often missing from a hybrid strategy built on ingredient science or consumer data alone.

• FoodConNext's convening role exists specifically to shortcut the cold outreach between these five functions.

  
  

Technical:

• Consumer-behaviour research from Wageningen University increasingly runs as a joint retailer project, not a downstream study.

• Compliance clearance from bodies such as Eurofins determines claims before positioning research or category placement is finalised.

• Demand-trend analysis from firms like Circana should inform formulation briefs before ingredient sourcing, not after.

• NGO-retailer collaborations such as Madre Brava's supermarket protein-mix work are increasingly shaping category targets ahead of regulation.

  
  

Verdict & Next Step

No single function moves a hybrid product from concept to shelf. Retail, ingredients, manufacturing, policy research, and market intelligence each hold a piece, and the fastest-moving hybrid teams in 2026 are the ones building relationships across all five rather than mastering just one.

Hybrid Foods Europe puts this exact cross-section of people in one Amsterdam room, 14–16 September 2026, Van der Valk Zuidas. Register for Hybrid Foods Europe to meet this network directly rather than piecing it together one introduction at a time.

About Gerard Klein Essink

Gerard Klein Essink is the Founder and CEO of FoodConNext Foundation. He has run an international plant-based foods and proteins community for more than 20 years, published numerous industry reports, authored innovation reports on proteins for the Dutch government, advised the Canadian government on its pulse strategy, and produced strategic outlook reports for Pulse Canada and the Australian Grains Research and Development Corporation.

About FoodConNext Foundation

At FoodConNext Foundation, we believe that the future of food lies at the intersection of innovation, sustainability, and global collaboration. Our foundation is dedicated to accelerating the transition toward more resilient and responsible food systems by connecting key stakeholders across the agri-food ecosystem.

Our Mission

FoodConNext Foundation exists to bridge gaps in the global food system — bringing together entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers, and investors to co-create solutions that address some of the world's most pressing challenges, including food security, sustainability, and nutrition.