Research projects - Future Food Systems

Research projects

P1-039In Progress

Australian Agrifood Hubs. Facilitation and planning implications

The future of the Australian food landscape requires research that involves a range of disciplines, including agriculture, marketing, supply chain logistics, sustainability, the circular economy, science, and technology. Urban and regional planning are also significant as they have a role to play in terms of facilitating of appropriate environments, both physical and social, to allow future food systems to thrive.

P1-038In Progress

Mapping the Sunshine Coast and Noosa food and agribusiness ecosystem

Currently, there is limited understanding of the existing food and agribusiness physical ecosystem in the Sunshine Coast and Noosa regions, which significantly limits access and sharing of cost-effective distribution, packaging and infrastructure for the food and agribusiness industry. To move the food and agribusiness sector into a more mature stage of development and innovation, this project will study the current landscape in terms of ecosystem members, their roles and characteristics, production and distribution patterns, services, resources, finances and information flows, and soft and hard infrastructures availability and accessibility.

P1-019In Progress

Coffs Agrifood Living Lab

Earlier exploration of the Coffs Harbour food innovation ecosystem (Project Number P1-005) identified great potential in the Coffs Harbour region for increasing value-addition and overall production output. Collaboration among different stakeholders, including growers, producers, retailers, educational institutions, and policy makers, was observed as an overarching barrier to realizing this potential. A 'Precinct' where multiple stakeholders can come together in knowledge and other resource exchange was proposed as a viable solution to overcome these hurdles. The proposed project will address this issue, with the aim of establishing a ‘Living Lab’ (i.e. Living Laboratory) in Coffs Harbour to design the Precinct and act as a hub where other solutions can be developed to evolve the region's agrifood ecosystem. A Living Lab can be defined as a user-cantered, open innovation ecosystem based on systematic user co-creation approaches that integrate research and innovation processes in real life communities and settings.

P1-027In Progress

Spatially enabling Australian tree crops

The project will be collating industry information such as variety, planting date, management, productivity etc to each established orchard polygon. This collation of information will directly assist market access, traceability, biosecurity response, yield forecasting, carbon storage, regeneration and drought resilience, and will set a new standard for all other agricultural industries.

P1-037In Progress

Utilising Advanced Manufacturing to expand the Australian Exotic mushroom industry

The Australian domestic exotic mushroom market heavily relies on imports, leading to high prices and limited availability. However, there is a strong demand for locally produced alternatives, especially among Asian cultural communities. To unlock market potential, the industry needs streamlined production, improved quality, and year-round supply. In this project, five key strategies will be developed to address these challenges and capitalize on opportunities.

P1-036In Progress

An integrated computational and collaborative approach for city resilience planning

The proposed project aims to visualise future freight demands for agricultural commodities in kilotonnes originating from the Namoi region. This visualisation will rely on the actual projections made by Transport for NSW at the SA3-level and their downscaled estimations at the LGA level. The downscaling process will utilise a linear proportional estimation based on the available total production data for such commodities from ABS/DPI.

P1-035In Progress

How can the attributes consumers value be determined for NSW horticultural products

This project aims to track online personal food preferences and establish a hierarchy of drivers for purchasing produce, including affordability, access, and source. The goal is to provide invaluable insights into consumer behaviour for NSW farmers, enabling them to align their production and marketing strategies accordingly.

P1-031In Progress

Discrete Choice Modelling for sustainable food and beverage packaging

The objective of this project is to develop two economic discrete choice models to determine the economic viability of optimal packaging options and in so doing support researchers in core experiment activiites by providing guidance and direction.

P1-030In Progress

Dynamic life cycle sustainability (LCS) assessment of thermoform packaging and future replacement technologies

The dynamic Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment methodology proposed by FPP R&D and UNSW will compromise three parts: environmental life cycle assessment (e-LCA), life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment (s-LCA).

P1-029In Progress

Manufacturing transparent food packaging using a circular economy framework

FP Paradigm Pty Ltd (FPP) R&D is seeking to transition the current food packaging standard of transparent petroleum-based material to transparent non-petroleum based sustainable material that is commercially viable within five years. The challenge lies in embedding a circular economy framework within the manufacture of transparent food packaging materials at scale while retaining or improving final product properties and quality (e.g., transparency, long-term durability, stability, strength). This project aims to develop a process which uses carbon dioxide (CO2)-containing waste streams as the foundation for manufacturing transparent food packaging materials (via thermoforming), moving away from petroleum-derived products. CO2 emissions from the gasification of biomass from agri-food wastes and/or waste plastic will be utilised in conjunction with water (H2O) and sunlight to fabricate monomers. The monomers are the building blocks for polymers used to formulate the plastics used to manufacture the transparent food packaging materials.

P1-026In Progress

Disposable colorimetric QR sensor labels for secure food traceability

This project aims to develop a low-cost sensor technology designed to solve food traceability problems and reduce food waste. In the event of a food contamination incident, supermarkets choose to throw away all batches of food that may have been contaminated, even if only a small portion of the food is affected.

P1-025In Progress

Colorimetric sensor labels in packaging for easy monitoring of food and beverage quality

This project alms to develop colorimetric sensor indicators attached on packaging that enables real-time monitoring of fresh produce quality by visual colour changes. To dale, a number of sensors have been commercialized for food applications; however, these indicators typically record the temperature history of a product to indicate whether the food has been exposed to above-recommended temperatures and they do not inform the food quality accurately. Detecting gases produced during food spoilage can be a useful and reliable method for specific monitoring of food quality. This project will create sensors on packaging that change colours when exposed to gases produced by spoiled food. We will develop user-friendly and intuitive sensors that are low-cost and easy to use, without the need of specialized equipment. This sensor technology can be used to monitor the quality and safety of food and beverage throughout the entire supply chain, from production to consumption. The valuable information gained for food quality detection will lay the foundation for its application for beverages. The main difference is instead of interacting with gases, the sensors will be dealing with liquid samples.