RICHARD REED, Mr Smoothie

When Reed and two friends gave up their day jobs to start the Innocent smoothie company, little did they know how quickly their plan to use fresh fruit rather than concentrates would take off.

Claim to fame With a 73 per cent market share, more than two million bottles selling each week in 11,000 outlets, you are never far from an Innocent smoothie containing at least one portion of fruit and veg.

Lasting legacy We are a little bit healthier and he is a lot wealthier. His stake in the company is valued at £41 million.

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GILLIAN McKEITH, TV nutritionist

McKeith, the presenter of You Are What You Eat and million-selling author of food and nutrition books, brought colonic irrigation into the mainstream, thanks to her penchant for analysing the nation's poo.

Claim to fame Formerly known as “Dr Gillian McKeith”, she dropped the title from her company's advertisements after it was found that it was obtained from a non-accredited course in America.

Lasting legacy McKeith has shown how a brass neck, can overcome the small matter of appropriate qualifications. Hopefully, her success in raising nutritional health to a lifestyle aspiration will have a knock-on effect on Britain's plates (or loo pans).

DAME DEIRDRE HUTTON CBE, Chair of the Food Standards Agency

At the helm of the Government's food advisory body, Hutton has been the focal point for government work on how to get us all to eat less fat, less sugar and less salt.

Claim to fame To the public eye, she's helping us to make better-informed decisions about what we eat - mainly by encouraging the food industry to use traffic-light labelling on the front of packs. Behind the scenes, though, she has played a careful game buffering the demands of the food campaigners and the food industry.

Lasting legacy If there's someone to thank for the number of new “healthy” processed foods, it's her.

RICHARD BRASHER, Commercial and Trading Director of Tesco

Brasher is in overall charge of the buying budget at the biggest retailer in the country. His purchasing power decides not only what millions of us eat but also what we cook with, wear, smell like, watch, drive. Heck he even chooses our engagement rings (Tesco sells them now, too).

Claim to fame With nearly 2,000 stores in Britain, there's a Tesco on virtually every high street. Sales last year reached £51.8 billion and £1 in every £8 spent on the high street is spent at Tesco.

Lasting legacy He brings fresh food to the masses and revitalises tired shopping parades, or swamps us with cheap food from exploited producers while killing the high street, depending on your view.

TIM LANG, Academic and campaigner

Tim Lang, the Professor of Food Policy at City University in London and a government consultant on sustainability, is a vociferous campaigner for food safety and the environment

Claim to fame He's the man who coined the term “food miles” and has popularised awareness of the impact of our consumption on the environment. Now he has turned his attention to the question of how depleting oil supplies will affect how we shop for food.

Lasting legacy He's boosted seasonal and local food by publicising our unsustainable habits. Now many of us question if we really need to eat asparagus all year round.

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