Courtney Pochin
Courtney Pochin is a Senior Lifestyle Reporter and specialist food writer at Metro, focusing on everyday eating, consumer food trends, and service-led stories that connect food with wider lifestyle and relationship themes.
Food trends, restaurant openings and comfort brands
Courtney’s core food beat centres on tracking new food and drink trends, profiling restaurant openings, and explaining how changing tastes show up in ordinary lives. She writes features that spotlight enduring comfort brands and their place in contemporary culture, such as a piece on a beloved fast food chain older than McDonald’s that is still thriving after 87 years. Her coverage of nutrition and home cooking often runs through recognisable personalities, including a recent article on nutritionist Emily English’s easy “one-pot wonder” meal and the supermarket ingredient she refuses to buy. Across these pieces she favours clear, accessible explanations over criticism, positioning food as something readers can try today rather than observe from afar.
Consumer-focused food and retail reporting
Courtney’s author page emphasises that she covers consumer news around food and drink as part of her specialist remit. Her work includes reporting built around data-rich consumer insights, such as an article drawing on a supermarket data collector who visited 1,000 stores worldwide to rank the best and worst chains, translating that experience into practical guidance for shoppers. She regularly writes about how brands, supermarkets and high street outlets treat their customers, whether that is the longevity of a fast food institution or the value and quality of everyday items. This strand of her reporting distinguishes her from a pure restaurant critic: she focuses on how readers spend money on food, what they get in return, and where the gaps are in convenience, price and experience.
Lifestyle, relationships and health-led features
Alongside food, Courtney writes more generally about health, relationships and lifestyle news, extending her beat into how people live and feel. Her relationship coverage includes pieces such as a feature in which men describe how often they think about “the one that got away,” combined with commentary from counsellors on nostalgia, emotional needs and long-term partnership. She covers health and habit change, including an article on how almost half of people have broken their 2022 health goals and practical steps to get back on track. Human-interest reporting runs through her work, such as a story about an author with a severe genetic disease who sets a bucket list to visit 30 countries before turning 30. Earlier in her Metro career she has also written more playful and sex-positive lifestyle pieces, including a roundup drawn from Metro’s “masturbation archive” and a feature marking “Steak and Blow Job Day.” She occasionally uses nostalgia and digital culture as a lens on everyday life, as in her look back at how major websites like Apple and McDonald’s appeared twenty years ago compared with today.
Interviews, profiles and personality-driven stories
Courtney frequently builds her articles around interviews, allowing subjects to explain their own expertise or experiences in detail. Her food coverage includes personality-led pieces, such as an Instagrammed interview where Rachel Khoo shares what Courtney found in her kitchen cupboards, reflecting her interest in how chefs and writers cook at home as well as on screen. She profiles fashion and culture events, including a Norwich Fashion Week feature highlighting five quirky looks from The Designers Show. Her human-interest reporting is often anchored in individual stories, from the author planning 30 trips before 30 to everyday people navigating health and relationships. She also produces practical service features built around expert or campaigner input, such as a widely shared article mapping which Tube stations have toilets, framed as essential information for all Londoners. Across these formats she keeps the tone direct and conversational, using interviews to ground broader lifestyle and consumer themes.
Experience and background in lifestyle reporting
Courtney has written for Metro since at least 2016, when she authored a retrospective on the early designs of major global websites, and she continues to publish lifestyle and food stories in 2026. Over that time she has moved from general lifestyle topics into a clearly defined specialist food and consumer role. Outside Metro, she has lifestyle bylines at the Eastern Daily Press, including fashion coverage of Norwich Fashion Week. Her professional bio notes previous experience at the Daily Mirror and EDP24, indicating a background in national tabloid and regional lifestyle reporting before taking on her current post. This mix of food, consumer and human-interest work gives her a broad canvas: she covers what people eat, where they spend their money, how they look after themselves, and how relationships and culture shape those choices.
4 more food journalists.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What's On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose food and leisure coverage is built around immersive, first-person reporting and concrete detail. He works at the Manchester Evening News, focusing on new restaurant and bar openings, regular food reviews, gig and event coverage, and issues affecting LGBTQ+ people. He treats restaurants, pubs, bars and experiences as stories about place, people and community, explaining what makes a venue different and how it fits into the local dining scene. His pieces cover pricing, service, atmosphere, crowds and concept, and he is willing to be critical when gimmicks undermine the experience. He writes character-led pub profiles, works shifts, joins treasure hunts and attends major cultural events, inviting readers to follow what he does and use his straightforward assessments to decide where to eat, drink and spend time.
Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd
Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd is editor at Secret Manchester, where she treats food as part of how people live in the city, not as an isolated subject. She covers restaurants, bars, street food and casual dining, linking new openings and food trends to neighbourhood change, local businesses and everyday routines. Her pieces focus on accessible spots, comfort dishes like pizza and tacos, and clear details of menus, presentation, atmosphere and practical information such as opening hours and booking. She often combines food, drink and live events, producing guides to venues for major sports tournaments and themed pop-ups as part of wider things to do. Alice also reports on hospitality business pressures, city-centre public spaces, charity initiatives, transport and infrastructure, always showing how food and drink fit into community and lifestyle stories. She previously wrote for other regional “Secret” sites as a staff writer and describes herself as a writer and food fanatic.
Aly Walansky
Aly Walansky specializes in service-driven food coverage that treats cocktails and dining as tools for celebration, focusing on how logistics, ordering options, and menu choices turn everyday meals and major holidays into shared experiences. She is a longtime food and travel journalist now writing for Forbes, where her beat centers on cocktails and occasion-driven dining. Her work includes practical, expert-driven roundups such as guides to many variations on the classic martini, shipped-meals gift lists for Mother’s Day, and accessible formats for Thanksgiving and other holidays. She reports through structured lists, restaurant features, and menu-focused profiles that highlight signature dishes and dining trends. Across outlets, she extends this approach to home cooking, grocery shopping, and recipes, and runs a newsletter that shares her current assignments and industry commentary.
Ben Hurst
Ben Hurst joins food, entertainment and cost-of-living angles, treating cooking, groceries and celebrity stories as everyday decisions for readers. He is Head of Lifestyle and Money at WalesOnline, shaping practical, trending coverage that is tightly written, headline-led and easy to scan and share. His food reporting leans on TV chefs and supermarket behaviour, turning their advice and product changes into clear tips and consumer explainers focused on value for money and household budgets. He also writes extensively about TV and celebrity figures, using recognisable names to carry stories about health, family challenges, cancer treatment and resilience. Alongside these, he produces visual, nostalgia-driven galleries and concise explainers on wide-interest phenomena, drawing on a senior newsroom background that includes executive editor, video lead and news editor roles.