Selected work · Event Strategy
Taste of Europe.
300 invitees and the UK food retail leadership in the room when the 'From Grains to Geopolitics' panel made the EU food supply chain case directly to the people who operate it.
- Client
- EU Delegation to the UK
- Discipline
- Event Strategy
- Services
- Strategic Direction, Creative Development
Taste of Europe could have landed as a wine-and-cheese reception with embassies along the wall. The Delegation needed it to land as something different: the room where the leadership of UK food retail heard the EU's food security and geopolitics thesis directly, alongside the broader celebration of European food culture. Our role was the part of an event that decides which version actually happens, who is on the invitation list, and how the right people get from name to confirmed attendee.
The brief
What the client arrived with.
An event programmed across two registers, a 300-person food fair with 19 EU member states showcasing 45 producers, and a substantive geopolitics panel at Europe House on food security and trade, only works if both audiences turn up. The celebration audience finds its own way. The industry decision-makers do not. UK supermarket CEOs and procurement leads do not respond to mailing-list invites.
The intelligence
What we learned about the terrain.
Asda and Tesco between them shape a large share of UK grocery procurement. Their CEOs and procurement leads are the actual decision-makers on EU import volumes and on how a forthcoming SPS Agreement would be operated in practice. Cold outreach to FTSE retailer leadership does not work; warm outreach through institutional intermediaries does. The event programming, DG Agriculture's Lionel Mesnildrey, Trinity College Dublin's Professor Alan Matthews, The Economist's Tom Standage and the FT's Jay Rayner, was credible enough to justify CEO-level diary time, provided the ask was framed as a peer conversation rather than a reception invite.
The goal · one locked behavioural outcome
Get the UK food retail and industry leadership into the room so the geopolitics panel landed with the audience that actually operates UK food supply chains.
Everything that follows served this single sentence.
The strategy
The architecture we built.
Direction locked on the industry-leadership audience as the one whose presence would determine whether the panel landed. Channel strategy paired institutional warm outreach via embassy contacts and trade-association intermediaries with a structured target list of UK retail leadership, procurement decision-makers and food policy figures, layered onto the broader celebration invite plan so the room held both registers without one swamping the other.
The work
What shipped.
Target attendee research across UK food retail leadership, procurement decision-makers, trade-association heads, food policy contacts and press, with warm-outreach pathways identified for each name. Contact-details research and verification across the full list. Event administration support on the day across the Europe House panel and the Sinfonia Smith Square food fair.
What moved
What happened afterwards.
- 300
- Invitees in the room
- 45
- European producers showcased
- 19
- EU member states represented
The event delivered on 21 April 2026 at Sinfonia Smith Square and Europe House, hosted by the EU Delegation and 19 EU London embassies. 300 invitees attended, 45 producers showcased across more than 30 product categories, 19 member states represented. The 'From Grains to Geopolitics' panel landed with Ambassador Pedro Serrano opening, DG Agriculture's Lionel Mesnildrey, Trinity College Dublin's Professor Alan Matthews and The Economist's Tom Standage in conversation. The EU's food security thesis and the SPS Agreement subtext sat in front of the right audience, not only the wine-and-cheese audience. The Delegation now holds a working contact list for ongoing UK food industry engagement.
- 1Target attendee list across UK retail leadership and food industry decision-makers
- 2Contact-details research and verification
- 3Warm-outreach pathway mapping via embassy and trade-association intermediaries
- 4On-the-day event administration support
Next campaign · Event Strategy
European Progress Conference.
Inaugural Brussels conference launched against the current of European pessimism, with the right institutional names in the room to make the position credible.
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