Future Food

The health and wellness megatrend

Research by the Commonwealth Growth Centre for Food and Agribusiness, Food Innovation Australia Ltd (FIAL), has projected massive growth in demand for goods with verified nutrition and quality attributes, with most of the new demand in Asia. By 2025:

  • the global market for foods catering to demand for trusted fine foods, indigenous foods, and nutritious ‘convenience meals’ alone is projected to be worth AU$2.7–AU$3.6 trillion per annum;
  • the ‘health and wellness’ category – which includes plant-based protein, organic foods, ‘free from’ foods catering to those with allergies and on special diets – is forecast to be worth AU$3.4 trillion p.a.; and
  • the emerging market for ‘targeted eating’ – product reformulation to reduce fat and sugar content; functional or fortified foods; and ‘personalised’ products designed to address specific nutrient needs and health concerns – is projected to be worth AU$690–AU$770 billion p.a.

Building scale in these markets entails new collaboration across the agrifood value chain, innovation across logistics and manufacturing, and the development of specialised industry clusters.

Leveraging Australia’s reputation for quality

Australian foods and beverages enjoy an established reputation for quality and safety, particularly in North Asian markets. CSIRO’s Food and Agribusiness Roadmap: unlocking value-adding growth opportunities for Australia (July 2017) revealed growing global demand for healthy, sustainable, high-quality food goods, indicating that our agrifood industry could profitably leverage its clean, green reputation.

A primary aim of the CRC is to increase the capacity of our agrifood sector to value-add prior to export, with a focus on tailoring products to end-market consumers’ requirements. Achieving this will require deploying advanced manufacturing technology in future processing facilities and developing advanced traceability, transactional and compliance solutions. Increasing the reliability, speed and transparency with which Australian goods traverse the export supply chain is a central goal of the CRC’s government partners.

Achieving national growth targets

The Commonwealth has set a target to double the value of Australian agriculture from $50 billion to $100 billion per annum by 2030.

This is achievable with smart investment in the value chain, guided by insight into the preferences and needs of future customers.