23 March 2017 Annabel Langbein on graduation award menu at Lincoln

Celebrity cook and best-selling food-writer Annabel Langbein will receive an honorary doctorate as Lincoln recognises three outstanding alumni at this year’s Graduation Ceremony on April 28.

Joining her on the dais will be influential businessman and farmer Forbes Elworthy, receiving the Bledisloe Medal, while Brian Hedley is the 2017 Alumni International Medal winner for his work in agriculture, poverty alleviation and challenging social injustice.

Ms Langbein will add an Honorary Doctorate in Commerce to the Diploma of Horticulture with Distinction she was awarded by Lincoln University in 1981.

Her primetime TV series, The Free Range Cook is viewed in more than 90 countries and she can list a rich smorgasbord of achievements. Her numerous self-published cookbooks have sold more than two million copies, she directs her own media company, and she writes food columns for several publications.

Her philanthropic work has included raising substantial sums for the Heart Foundation of New Zealand, Autism New Zealand and other charity groups.

Mr Elworthy studied agricultural economics at Lincoln University, where he was student president in 1984.

After working in overseas financial markets he founded Craigmore Sustainables - now one of New Zealand’s leading farming businesses with investments in dairy, horticulture, red meat and also in the carbon forestry sector.

Mr Hedley completed a Diploma in Valuation and Farm Management at Lincoln in 1960. He has served on the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Aid Advisory Committee, as a director of several New Zealand companies, as a member of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science and New Zealand Society of Farm Management, and most recently as a trustee of the Kyrgyzstan New Zealand Rural Trust.

Lincoln University Vice-Chancellor Professor Robin Pollard says the awards reflect the diverse field which Lincoln graduates influence and succeed in, and the outstanding contributions the award recipients have made to society and the world at large.

Biography notes

Annabel Langbein
Ms Langbein established the Culinary Institute of New Zealand in 1991, and was instrumental in driving marketing and media campaigns for New Zealand food manufacturers, retailers and exporters.
She also promoted New Zealand food offshore for Trade New Zealand and spent seven years as a director of the New Zealand Gourmet Cheese Company, Kapiti.

Her books and TV series have won numerous international awards, including Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for Best Entertaining Cookbook, Best Easy Recipes Cookbook and Best Celebrity Cookbook. In 2013 she won NZ Guild of Food Writers Culinary Quills for best website, best TV series and best book, and in 2014 she won Best Culinary Series and Best Presenter at the Best on the Box People’s Choice Awards. At the US-based Taste Awards in 2015, she won the People’s Choice Award for Best Home Chef in a Series.

Forbes Elworthy
Brought up on Craigmore Station, a sheep, beef and deer property farmed by the Elworthy family in South Canterbury, Mr Elworthy started his work-life as a shepherd.  He went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1985 and completed a degree in politics, philosophy and economics there in 1988.

Mr Elworthy returned to fulltime farming in 2005 to live on, and manage Craigmore Station. From 2009 he partnered with his brother-in-law, Mark Cox, to create Craigmore Sustainables and has returned to the UK to leading a new digital venture, farm information management business Map of Agriculture.

He is following in the footsteps of his late father, Peter Elworthy, who was also a Bledisloe Medal recipient

Brian Hedley

Mr Hedley’s distinguished contribution to international development began in 1966 in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia for NZ Foreign Affairs followed by longer term assignments in the Philippines (Colombo Plan), Tanzania (FAO) and Nepal (ADB).  
He joined ANZDEC, an international consultancy company, serving as Managing Director from 1981 to 1995 and from 1996 to 1998, as International Manager of Royd’s Consulting. Between 1998 and 2006 Mr Hedley formed and managed Aberdeen Consulting completing assignments for the Asian Development Bank in Bangladesh and Nepal.

Since 2005, he has been involved with charitable work as a trustee of the Kyrgyzstan New Zealand Rural Trust that raises funds in New Zealand to assist impoverished livestock keeping communities in remote mountainous areas of Kyrgyzstan.

He and wife Lynne also established their own charitable trust (Astha Children’s Home (Nepal/New Zealand)) which began supporting eight girls who, at the ages of 5-6, were being trafficked from an impoverished region of Nepal to brothels in India.

 
About Honorary Doctorates
The Lincoln University Council established an Honorary Degrees Committee in November 1992 to enable it to confer higher doctorates honoris causa, with the first honorary doctorates awarded in 1993.  An honorary doctorate is awarded to a person who has an established connection with Lincoln University to recognise their achievement in his or her chosen field.

About the Bledisloe Medal
The Bledisloe Medal, initiated in 1930 by the late Viscount Bledisloe, former Governor-General of New Zealand, is awarded to a former student or past or current staff member of Lincoln University who, in the opinion of the Lincoln University Council, has made an outstanding contribution in his or her chosen field, advanced New Zealand's interests, and/or brought credit to Lincoln University.

About the Lincoln Alumni International Medal
The Lincoln Alumni International Medal is awarded to a former student, or a past or current staff member of Lincoln University who, in the opinion of the Lincoln University Council, has made an outstanding contribution to his or her chosen field, and brought credit to Lincoln University through achievements in a country other than New Zealand.