Blazing the trail for food and beverage manufacturing in Australia

With funding of $49.6 million from the Commonwealth Department of Education and hosted by The University of Queensland (UQ), FaBA will help accelerate the growth of Australia’s food and beverage manufacturing sector, including growth in skilled jobs, new startups and growth in new value added products and ingredients.

FaBA’s director, Dr Chris Downs has more than 30 years’ experience in the sector. He is a former general manager for Crop and Food Science at the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and previously led the Food Program at CSIRO.

“FaBA is an important initiative for Australia’s food and beverage industry and an opportunity to bring together government, research and industry to work in collaboration to deliver value,” Dr Downs said.

“In supporting greater innovation in the food and beverage sector, FaBA absolutely underpins the development and delivery of foods and beverages that are healthy, sustainably produced and safe and trusted for global consumers.

“And those big drivers are important in the world in which we live. Australia needs to continue to invest in onshore value addition of food and beverage products, which are then available for both domestic consumption and export into global markets,” he said.

UQ is working with CSIRO, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and University of Southern Queensland to build new research capabilities and drive commercialisation outcomes.

“FaBA is actually quite a significant step change for these universities,” Dr Downs said.

“It’s a chance to bring together the best teams, but also change the way in which we work across the different disciplines within universities,” he said.The FaBA four program leads each have specific objectives to lift the skills and approaches universities take in engaging with industry partners.

The Trailblazing Training Centre will be led by Associate Professor Nidhi Bansal with an overarching objective of building workforce capacity through education and training.

“By implementing a consolidated Trailblazer FaBA Training Centre, we will provide a unique program that combines cutting-edge theory and traditional research training with professional and broad technical skills required by industry from diverse sectors,” Professor Bansal said.

Premium Food and Beverages, led by Professor Jason Stokes from UQ’s School of Chemical Engineering, will support the science and engineering associated with the development and production of value-added food and beverages.

“It’s particularly exciting to help create foods that meet consumer expectations in terms of sustainability, nutrition and vitality, as well as flavour and texture – and to be training the next generation of researchers to enhance innovation,” Professor Stokes said.

Innovation Pathways, led by Professor Janet McColl-Kennedy, will create programs with a multi-disciplinary approach.

“We will co-design a suite of programs to build skills to benefit both researchers and businesses – in emerging businesses and established businesses seeking to increase their competitiveness by using our ingredients in their products,” Professor McColl-Kennedy said.

Innovative Ingredients is led by Associate Professor Esteban Marcellin Saldana and will use synthetic biology and precision fermentation to produce sustainable and tasty food.

“By combining advances in synthetic biology in traditional food fermentation microorganisms, we can produce ingredients that were previously unattainable through traditional fermentation methods and offer new functionalities and sensory properties,” Associate Professor Saldana said.

Dr Downs said FaBA was already off to a flying start.

“We’ve already proactively engaged with more than ten companies who’ve expressed strong interest in being part of the FaBA program.

“I think success will be measured by growing businesses and employment in businesses over FaBA’s initial four-year period. This is an opportunity to boost investment significantly, but also leave a legacy of ongoing investment into innovation in the food and beverage sector,” Dr Downs said.

Words by Natalie MacGregor