Sustainability in Drinks announces keynote speaker for 2026 edition
Andy Cato, co-founder of regenerative food and farming company Wildfarmed, will headline this autumn’s Sustainability in Drinks event.
Having upped its presence at both Wine Paris and Vinexpo Asia this year, Sustainability in Drinks is now turning attention to its flagship London event on 20 October. Andy Cato, co-founder of Wildfarmed, has just been announced as its keynote speaker.
Cato first found fame as half of electronic music duo Groove Armada, but has now spent more than a decade as a farmer. In 2013, he sold the rights to his music to purchase a farm in Gascony, France. Since then, he has dedicated himself to sustainable agriculture (with the odd Ibiza gig for good measure).
In 2018, he co-founded Wildfarmed, a retail and wholesale business that supplies bread and flours made through regenerative farming. Consumers can buy products from Tesco, Ocado, M&S and Waitrose, while the wholesale business supplies companies from Greggs to Nando’s to Michelin-starred AngloThai.
His position as a successful businessman, proving the commercial potential of sustainable products, made him a prime candidate for the keynote speech at Sustainability in Drinks 2026.
Moreover, he is an inspirational advocate for regenerative farming. Indeed, readers may know him from the television series Clarkson’s Farm. In the third season, he convinced Jeremy Clarkson – a man not known for his muted opinions and pushover personality – to convert a field to regenerative agriculture. The experiment was a success, and Clarkson has since expanded the regeneratively farmed area.
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“Andy Cato brings a rare combination of creative thinking, hands-on agricultural expertise and genuine commercial credibility,” commented Judy Kendrick, director of Sustainability in Drinks. “His ability to connect big-picture environmental thinking with practical, actionable solutions makes him exactly the kind of voice our industry needs to hear.”
Building on its success
Cato’s appearance as keynote speaker is the first major update for the 2026 London edition of Sustainability in Drinks. However, given the previous two editions’ success, visitors can already expect a diverse and collaborative gathering.
The event, running at Christ Church Spitalfields in London on 20 October, is intended to be the biggest yet. Encompassing exhibitors, presentations, workshops and panel debates, the event examines sustainability from all angles, and from start to finish of the supply chain. Therefore, it welcomes buyers, importers, distributors, retailers, hospitality operators, producers, brand managers, packaging specialists and logistics providers as both visitors and exhibitors.
Sustainability in Drinks, even though it only began in 2024, has already built up a strong reputation for leading thinking in sustainability in the drinks trade. At The Drinks Business Awards 2025, it was named Drinks Event of the Year, with the judges describing it as “a professional, relevant and ground-breaking conference with a global reach”.
The Vinexposium V d’Or Business Awards, meanwhile, recognised it earlier this year with a Jury’s Special Mention. The international awards reflecting its growing international presence: at Wine Paris earlier this year, it brought together key organisations and presented daily workshops on pressing sustainability issues, while at the recent edition of Vinexpo Asia, it organised a panel discussion on regenerative viticulture.
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