Meet the Nourish Staff

Pete Ritchie, Executive Director

Pete has a background in community development and social policy. As executive director, Pete is responsible with the board and staff team for focusing Nourish Scotland’s work where it can be most effective. This includes engaging with policy-makers and stakeholders as well as working for change from the bottom-up with grassroots groups. As well as working at Nourish, Pete runs Whitmuir Organics with his partner Heather Anderson.

Anna Chworow, Deputy Director

Anna‘s background is in third sector governance. She joined Nourish in 2017. She looks after communications, membership and finances, and ensures that Nourish’s internal process and governance reflect the organisational values. Her enduring love of spreadsheets is only rivalled by her enthusiasm for growing broad beans.

Diana Carolina Garduño Jiménez, Project Officer

Diana (Dee-ah-nah) joined Nourish  in 2020. She coordinates work on non-hierarchical knowledge exchange in agroecology. She is also co-working with experts by experience to understand what meangingful public participation should look like under the Good Food Nation local food plans.  She is passionate about exploring what decoloniality means in practice within food systems and using creative methods such as arts-based practices and games in her facilitation. When she’s not working with Nourish you can find her dancing or having the slight suspicion that her sourdough starter might really be dead this time.

Simon Kenton-Lake, Policy & Project Officer

Simon works on sustainable nutrition, leading on the Peas Please project in Scotland. His background is in behaviour change responding to the climate emergency, including network support and effective partnership working. He is passionate about food, setting up various food surplus cooking projects in Oxford before moving to Edinburgh in 2019. When not eating or cooking he likes to run up hills and sit in pubs.

Miesbeth Knottenbelt, Project Officer

Miesbeth joined our team in 2017 to manage the Making a Living from Local Food Programme. She now runs the Scottish Organic Stakeholders Group and a series of short projects including the Public Diners pilot project. She also works across several other Nourish Scotland projects supporting the Dignity project resources, the Scottish Food Coalition, and other bits and pieces.
Before joining Nourish, Mies worked for more than 20 years in universities setting up, researching and running staff- and student- teaching support; worked for the Edinburgh Bike Station promoting cycling in low-income communities for a while, and did a lot of telephone counselling as a volunteer for Parentline (Children1st). She has an active role in supporting Spokes The Lothian Cycle Campaign and keenly accompanies developments in the active travel (alongside the food and drink) policy worlds.

Irina Martin, Project Officer

Irina co-delivers Nourish’s Dignity in Practice project. Her background is in community development, promoting healthy eating and social engagement. She is passionate about good food, building communities, the environment and social inclusion. She is an advocate for Zero Waste Scotland and works alongside other community organisations towards a fairer food system. She recently joined Nourish to work on the Dignity Practice project. She is from Bolivia but studied in Aberdeen and London, lived and worked in New Zealand, London, Inverness, Edinburgh, and currently Glasgow. Her graduate and post-graduate studies focused on gender, politics and social movements.