Dawn Sweeney, the National Restaurant Association's president and chief executive, is one of America's most powerful people in food, according to the Daily Meal.
Sweeney was ranked No. 31 on the online publication's list of the top 50 influencers in food. This is the second year in a row that the NRA chief was featured on the list; she made the No. 34 spot last year.
According to Colman Andrews, editor of the Daily Meal, criteria for inclusion on the list consisted of whether the person was deemed capable "by dint of corporate station, media access, oral authority or sheer personality, of substantially changing, improving and/or degrading the quality and variety of the American diet or the way we think about it."
In addition to Sweeney, other movers and shakers on the list include chef-restaurateurs Mario Batali, Jose Andres, Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters and renowned New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer. Also on the list are Bill Shore, founder and CEO of Share Our Strength, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, Thomas Vilsack, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States.