SPEAKERS
General & Breakout Sessions
The Freeze Dried Summit 2026 speaker lineup is packed with the industry's most innovative entrepreneurs, operators, and experts, each bringing real-world experience and actionable insights to the stage. This year, we're raising the bar with a stronger focus on in-depth education, emerging freeze-drying industry trends, and a carefully curated selection of hands-on workshops designed to give you practical tools you can put to work immediately.
Whether you're just starting out or ready to dominate the commercial freeze-drying space, the 2026 Summit stage was built with you in mind. Browse the profiles below, plan your experience, and get ready to leave Boise with the knowledge, connections, and confidence to take your freeze-drying business further than ever before.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Private Chef | TV Host | Content Creator | Food Brand Strategist
MARIO FABBRI
Mario Fabbri is a private chef, cooking show host, content creator, and founder of BananaReel, a video production company dedicated to helping food brands grow through powerful digital content and social media strategy. With over a decade of experience producing social campaigns, digital ads, and televised commercials for food brands, Mario has an extraordinary track record, helping grow a celebrity cooking account from zero to 10 million followers, co-producing a bestselling cookbook, and cooking on a Shark Tank episode that earned two offers from the Sharks.
Two years ago, Mario got his first Harvest Right freeze dryer and never looked back, generating over 100 million views across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for his freeze-drying experiments. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026, Mario brings his unique blend of culinary creativity, content mastery, and freeze-drying passion to help businesses of every size crack the code on building audiences that convert. This is one keynote that will change the way you think about your brand.
Natural Broker | Food Industry Strategist | Retail Growth Expert
MATTHEW KUBICK
Matthew Kubick is the co-founder of Local Demo Service, a mission-driven brokerage and demo company he launched with his wife Danielle in 2015 with a simple but powerful goal, converting everyday shoppers into sustainable eaters and helping better for you food brands find their place on retail shelves nationwide.
What started at Hawaiian farmers' markets, sampling locally grown coffee and macadamia nuts at Whole Foods has grown into a nationwide operation representing some of the most exciting brands in the natural food space. Matthew brings over a decade of real-world experience in food brokerage, retail strategy, and brand growth to the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 stage.
His keynote is one that freeze-drying business owners at every stage have been waiting for. Matthew is going to walk through the complete roadmap of getting a freeze-dried product into retail, covering everything from costs, distribution, and marketing to choosing the right brokers and retailers, navigating the real challenges, and building a game plan that actually works for this industry. If retail is on your radar, this is the session you cannot afford to miss.
SPEAKERS
Derek Meiss
Derek Meiss spent years at global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers before going on to serve as CFO for Watershed Foods LLC, one of the largest commercial freeze drying operators in the United States. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 Derek is bringing that firsthand financial expertise into a focused workshop built specifically for freeze drying business owners who are serious about their numbers.
Fractional CFO | President
Barberry Consulting
Troy Pettit
Troy Pettit, COO of TechSource Systems, revolutionized commercial freeze-drying with his exceptional automation programming and electrical design expertise! His innovative technology forms the backbone of TechSource's success as a top U.S.-based commercial freeze dryer manufacturer. Troy will share in-depth knowledge of how companies are scaling their freeze-drying businesses and how you can do it too!
COO
TechSource Systems
Tobias Schappeler
Sydney-based CEO and freeze-drying innovator Tobias Schappeler brings the future of food-safe freeze-dryer design from "Down Under" to the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 stage! As the leader of CryoDry, a globally certified freeze-drying equipment company built on sustainability and pharmaceutical- grade standards, Tobias is at the forefront of the industry's most important conversation: food safety and regulatory compliance
CEO
CryoDry
David Leaman
David Leaman is the founder of The Freeze Dried Business and the face of the freeze-drying industry's premier educational platform. Through YouTube, the Frozen Assets Podcast, private memberships, consulting, and in-person events, David has built the go-to ecosystem for entrepreneurs at every stage of the freeze-drying journey. As your host for the Freeze Dried Summit 2026, David takes the stage to share his vision for the trajectory of the entire industry!
Global Freeze-Drying Ambassador
Freeze Dried Summit Host
Teresa Perry
Teresa Perry is the Director of Operations at Glacial Freeze Dry and has spent years building a commercial freeze drying operation from the ground up through hard work, strategic partnerships, and plenty of lessons learned along the way. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 Teresa brings an honest and practical perspective on what it actually takes to build a real freeze drying business and what she would do differently starting over today.
Director of Operations
Glacial Freeze Dry
Sean Jones
Sean is a recovering corporate executive with over 30 years of C-level leadership who traded the boardroom for his passion in pet nutrition. He founded Foodynamics, a bootstrapped freeze drying company that grew to private label products for more than 150 pet industry brands before being acquired by Glacial Freeze Dry in 2025. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 Sean brings a rare perspective on what it takes to build, scale, and successfully exit a freeze drying business from the ground up.
Pet Nutrition Obsessionist
Glacial Freeze Dry
Adeola Balogun
Adeola Balogun is the founder of Limlim Foods, one of the pioneering commercial freeze-drying companies in Nigeria and West Africa. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026, Adeola brings a front row perspective on one of the most untapped freeze drying markets in the world, sharing practical lessons on building a commercial freeze drying operation in Africa and why the opportunity to help shape the future of the industry across a continent of more than 1.5 billion people is one that cannot be ignored.
COO & Founder
Limlim Foods
Zachary Cartwright
Zachary Cartwright is a principal food scientist and isotherm application specialist at AQUALAB by Addium with a PhD in Food Science from Washington State University and years of experience helping food manufacturers understand and control water activity in shelf stable products. At the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 Zachary translates complex moisture science into practical tools and takeaways that freeze drying business owners can immediately apply to improve product stability, and maintain quality.
Principal Food Scientist
AquaLab by Addium
Lloyd Parks
Lloyd Parks is the VP of Sales at Cuddon Freeze Dry and brings a global perspective on freeze drying technology and food processing to the Freeze Dried Summit 2026 stage. At the Summit Lloyd is sharing his kill step validation research and findings within the freeze drying process and making the case for why food safety standards around delicate products like dairy, meat, and allergens are critical for the advancement of the freeze drying industry worldwide.
VP Sales (N. & S. America)
Cuddon Freeze Dry
