Understanding the food innovation ecosystem in Coffs Harbour

The agrifood sector accounts for 16.7% of employment in the Coffs Harbour LGA and is the largest producer of exports in the region. Alongside blueberries, which account for 80 per cent of all regional produce, agrifood businesses in the Coffs Harbour LGA produce bananas, potatoes, ginger, garlic, turmeric, milk and seafood, among other food products.

Supporting Activity 1. 1 of Research Program 1, the purpose of this project is to understand the current food-production ecosystem in Coffs Harbour and, concurrently, prospects for growth of this ecosystem, particularly in the light of output capacity and increased value-add, the creation of food hubs and distribution, and the deployment of technology.

The output of this project includes an executive report for Coffs Harbour City Council synthesising the current state of affairs, providing a perspective on the likely future state of the Coffs Harbour food ecosystem and, importantly, highlighting anticipated barriers to and promoters of the transition from the current to the proposed future agrifood ecosystem.

The findings of this project will benefit a wide range of stakeholders – entities with vested interest in the Coffs Harbour ecosystem.

These findings will be translatable to other regional food ecosystems across the nation that are endeavouring to transition to a more ‘value-add-centric’ ecosystem model.