Britain’s food and beverage companies run factories, cold chains, and supply networks that keep supermarket shelves full, and a single attack can halt production and empty stores within days. The five cybersecurity leaders below protect some of the country’s biggest food producers, ingredients makers, and snack brands. Their careers range from Y2K programmes for Rolls-Royce to security services for Shell, and from running service desks to countering state-sponsored espionage. One led the team that recovered terabytes of stolen data and countered a government-backed spying operation against a nuclear sector company. Another has spent more than 30 years in IT, rising from customer support engineer to head of cyber security at a major food producer.
Jeremy Dyson – Head of IT Operations and Cyber Security, Cranswick
Jeremy Dyson began as a customer support engineer at Matrix Resource Management in 1991 and has spent more than three decades in IT, 16 years of them in head-of roles. He led service desks and service delivery at EWS Railway and Thales, where he headed UK service desks for six years, and ran IT support for 3,500 users at A4e before leading IT service delivery at PeoplePlus. At Wilko he took on responsibility for IT infrastructure, applications, and cyber security. Dyson joined Cranswick as head of cyber security in October 2023 and added IT operations to his remit in October 2025.
Darren Sykes – Group Information and Cyber Security Director (Former), pladis Global
Darren Sykes started as a managed services engineer at Energis and a technical architect at Norwich Union. Over nearly ten years at chipmaker CSR, he led the technical and security architecture behind the company’s rapid growth, then became its CISO, reporting to the CIO and owning its security strategy, budget, and team. At Qualcomm he served as European lead for information security and risk management, overseeing application security, architecture, offensive security, and cyber defence. He moved into food at Associated British Foods, leading information security and compliance before becoming group head of security and strategy. From 2023 to 2026 Sykes served as group information and cyber security director at pladis Global, the snacking group behind McVitie’s, Jacob’s, and Godiva. His next move will be one to watch.
Craig Greenwood – IT Security Director, Greencore
Craig Greenwood began at EDS, delivering Year 2000 programmes for Rolls-Royce’s industrial businesses, including upgrades of 23 ERP systems, and building a 40-person technical delivery team in Newcastle. At food distributor Brakes he managed IT services and a £10 million operating budget, then led enterprise architecture, security, and risk. For Hewlett-Packard he served as business manager and client security officer for its Shell account in The Hague, leading a global team of 80, coordinating the response to zero-day attacks, and helping build a security ecosystem with KPMG, Microsoft, and Accenture. After serving as head of IS services, CTO, and CSO at Insure The Box, he joined Greencore in 2018 as enterprise architect and security director and became IT security director in October 2022.
Massimo Cotrozzi – Group Head of Information Security, Tate & Lyle
Massimo Cotrozzi began at Arthur Andersen, consulting on e-business, payment systems, and security across Europe, and went on to build consulting practices as a partner at PIT Consulting and Sertytude. As managing director of KCS Group’s cyber security arm, his team countered a government-sponsored spying campaign against a company in the nuclear sector and recovered terabytes of data stolen from financial institutions’ clients. He investigated cybercrime and advanced persistent threats at EY, then led Deloitte UK’s Cyber Intelligence Centre, setting up security operations centres for clients and supporting start-ups as a technical officer at LORCA. After serving as EMEA practice manager at BSI, Cotrozzi became group head of information security at Tate & Lyle in March 2023, leading board and audit committee security reporting.
John Carron – Group CISO, Associated British Foods
John Carron started as a network consultant at Netcom Solutions and led infrastructure at British Sugar for nearly six years. He joined Associated British Foods’ IT shared service centre in 2008, rising from infrastructure support manager to head of infrastructure, head of architecture, and IS director, and became director of ABF Business Technology Services in 2023. Carron was appointed Group CISO of Associated British Foods in April 2026, after nearly two decades with the group.
Feeding the Nation Securely
These five leaders bring very different strengths to food and beverage security. Dyson and Carron grew through infrastructure and service roles into security leadership, while Greenwood and Sykes carried architecture and security experience from engineering, energy, and semiconductors. Cotrozzi brings deep investigative and intelligence experience from consulting and incident response. Together they help keep Britain’s food supply running, from factory floor to supermarket shelf.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.