A group of 18 small to medium South Australian food companies will be attending the intensive two-day Competitive Foods Initiative program in Melbourne run by Mondelez International, which is designed to unlock consumer insights and develop product innovation ideas for export to lucrative Asian markets.
Joining Mondelez in delivering the program will be South Australian success stories, Tucker’s Natural and Maggie Beer Products.
2014 marks the first time that companies outside of Victoria have been invited to participate in the program and Nicolas Georges, director premium chocolate and dairy, research & evelopment, Asia Pacific for Mondelēz International said that the company was embracing the notion of an ‘open door and collaborative approach’ to unlock opportunities within local food sector.
“The program focuses on sharing best practice innovation practices, where a show me, don’t tell me approach to the workshop allows small-to-medium-sized enterprises, state and Federal governments, industry, higher education and technology through collaboration – all with the aim of developing and sharing insights and building the platform to deliver world-class innovations. We are well positioned in Australia to nurture this innovation,” said Georges.
“Why create from scratch when we have complementary skills sets and can connect across the industry to help unlock opportunities together? More critically, why not work together to collectively lower the cost and risk of innovation?”
Catherine Barnett, CEO of South Australia’s peak food industry association, Food South Australia said that the program gave SA businesses the opportunity to collaborate outside their immediate network and learn how to successfully capitalise on opportunities both within Australia and abroad.
“There are 1.6 billion Asian consumers who will be looking for safe, high quality and delicious food products, and many South Australian businesses are already succeeding in export markets. We want to continue to expand on that success,” said Barnett.
“That said, we also understand there are significant opportunities still in Australia.”
The program is run from Mondelēz International’s Food Innovation Centre – the largest facility of its kind in Australia and one of the biggest in the Asia Pacific region. the centre has over 100 food innovators co-located with dedicated infrastructure and world-class technologies, including pilot manufacturing for new products, a design lab, smartwall virtual store and sensory facilities to deliver quality testing.