February 20, 2025
Positioning Australia as a global agrifood leader
It’s known for being evocative - and evokeAG 2025 did not disappoint.
Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator was a proud partner of the agrifood tech conference, which covered everything from using medical technology in the abattoir to the concept of ‘gut to paddock’.
Industry leaders spoke of Australia as a global leader in the agrifood space, including artificial intelligence, crops and plant science, bioprocessing and precision fermentation.
But they warned that national regulators must keep pace to ensure the nation’s ideas are supported.
“We have created a structure that stifles bold ideas rather than championing them … we need to back bold investments, it’s time to stop playing it safe” Julie Perry, Seafood Industry Australia said.
There was wide recognition that Australian food and beverage manufacturers needed to focus on meeting the increasingly diverse needs of consumers.
Professor Tony Bacic, La Trobe University, spoke about the need to move towards a “gut to paddock” approach whereby we stop thinking about yield as a measure of success and instead focus on the nutritional value of foods.
Industry-led research was seen as critical for the future of the F&B manufacturing sector: “Researchers need to deliver research industry wants,” said Anthony Lee, Australian Country Choice.
FaBA’s team was on hand across evokeAG to listen to the needs of our existing and new industry partners. It was a great opportunity for agrifood innovators to meet the FaBA team, as well as researchers from our partner universities: The University of Queensland, QUT and the University of Southern Queensland.