CSIRO’s Food & Agribusiness Roadmap has been launched by Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Craig Laundy at the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology’s (AIFST) 50th Anniversary Convention in Sydney.

Keeping a greater share of food processing onshore and better differentiating Australian food products are major themes across the Roadmap.

The main drivers of change in the sector identified in the Roadmap are: less predictable growing conditions, increasingly global value chains and customers who demand healthier, more convenient and traceable foods are driving businesses to new ways of operating.

The Roadmap outlines value-adding opportunities for Australian products in key growth areas, including health and wellbeing, premium convenience foods and sustainability-driven products that reduce waste or use less resources.

Five key enablers for these opportunities are explored: traceability and provenance, food safety and biosecurity, market intelligence and access, collaboration and knowledge sharing, and skills.

The Roadmap calls for improved collaboration and knowledge sharing to generate scale, efficiency and agility across rapidly changing value chains and markets.

Deputy Director of CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Dr Martin Cole said Australia was well positioned to act as a delicatessen of high-quality products that meet the needs of millions of informed and discerning customers both here and abroad.

“Australian businesses are among the most innovative in the world, and together with our world-class scientists, can deliver growth in the food and agribusiness sector amid unprecedented global change,” Dr Cole says.

“Less predictable growing conditions, increasingly global value chains and customers who demand healthier, more convenient and traceable foods are driving businesses to new ways of operating.”

“Advances are already being made through the use of blockchain technology and the development of labels that change color with temperature or time, or are programmed to release preservatives,” he explains.

“This Roadmap will set us on the path to sustainable growth in the sector.”

The Roadmap was developed in collaboration with the government-funded food and agribusiness growth center: Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL).

The Roadmap calls for improved collaboration and knowledge sharing to generate scale, efficiency and agility across rapidly changing value chains and markets.

“To survive and grow, the challenge facing Australia’s 177,000 businesses in the food and agribusiness sector is to identify new products, services and business models that arise from the emerging needs of tomorrow’s global customers,” Dr Cole adds.