Speaker Category: Main Speakers
Chris MacLeod
Chris MacLeod is co-owner of Laune Bread, a bakery in South Minneapolis focused on supporting local farmers & millers, whole grains, & sourdough bread. Our breads & pastries blend west coast American and German…
Mala Ganiger
Mala Ganiger is R&D lead for Minn-Dak Growers Ltd., located in Grand Forks, ND. This company specializes in buckwheat and mustard milling in the food-based industry. Her responsibilities revolve around buckwheat breeding projects, focusing…
Alyssa Walters
Alyssa Walters is the R&D Research Chef at the premier flour-milling and ingredient company Ardent Mills. In this role, Alyssa creates innovative prototypes and recipes, develops customer solutions with both Traditional Flour and Emerging…
Angie Echols
Angie Echols is local to the area, residing in Monticello, MN. She is the Food Security & Regulatory Compliance Manager at Bay State Milling Company, a food ingredient manufacturing company, with 9 US and…
Andrew Heyn
Andrew Heyn owns Elmore Mountain Bread with his wife, Blair Marvin in Northern Vermont. They bake wood-fired breads using stone ground local grain. Andrew designed and built his own mill for their bakery, and…
Dana Thompson
A lineal descendant of the Wahpeton-Sisseton and Mdewakanton Dakota tribes and lifetime Minnesota native, Dana Thompson has worked for nearly a decade within the food sovereignty movement. As co-owner and chief operating officer of…
Mark Jirik
Education: • Bachelor of Science in agricultural economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, N.D. • Master of Science in agricultural economics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. Experience: Jirik has more than 17 years of…
Amrita Ray, Ph.D.
Dr. Amrita Ray is a Food Scientist & Technologist with experience in the field of grain science and technology, milling & processing, dough rheology, micronutrient fortification and product development. She has worked on various…
