Australia makes efforts to supercharge commercialisation in F&B industry

The University of Queensland will lead Australia’s effort to supercharge commercialisation in the food and beverage (F&B) industry, with a share of $362 million in federal government funding.

The UQ-led Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) project will receive $50 million Trailblazer funding over four years to boost growth and innovation in the sector, potentially creating thousands of new jobs.

The Director of UQ’s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, Professor Matthew Morell said the project is backed by industry and innovation partners, along with Queensland University of Technology (QUT), the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), CSIRO and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

“By 2030, this project aims to contribute to doubling the value of Australia’s food and beverage manufacturing sector through a focus on smart production and new ingredients, creating innovative foods and beverages. FaBA is expected to help attract $1 billion in investment into food and beverage manufacturing and create 1700 skilled positions, along with a further 15000 jobs across the sector”, Professor Morell said.

UQ, industry partners and UQ’s university collaborators will also invest a further $110 million funding in the project. Food and beverage manufacturers will have access to affordable pilot facilities and state of the art equipment to test new products and FaBA will also work with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to use existing national facilities in food research.

The project is supported by Industry partners: Kalfresh, Simplot Australia, Gelita, v2food, GrainCorp, Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), Nourish Ingredients, All G Foods, Eden Brew, Change Foods, Phyllome, and BioSouth. Research partners: Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and University of Southern Queensland. Commercialisation partner: UniQuest. Innovations partners: AgriFood Connect, and FKG Group.

Image credit- Nourish Ingredients

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