19 Aug Shaping Tomorrow’s Plate: Highlights from the 2025 AIFST Convention
We had the privilege of attending this year’s Australia Institute of Food Science and Technology convention in Melbourne on 12th & 13th August.
The convention brought together people from all parts of the agrifood sector for two insightful and thought-provoking days exploring the challenges and solutions needed to build a future-ready Australian food industry. Discussions centred around three overarching themes: Future Foods, Food Waste and Food Security.
Future Foods
Lee Fordham from Synthesis explored how population growth and climate change will reshape our diets in the next decade, presenting two of the most likely future scenarios:
- The path of resilient adaptation, 63% likely outcome, where we adapt to new constraints with technology and science to create novel foods and replicate flavours of diminishing ingredients.
- The path of radical transformation, 37% likely outcome, a future where we proactively protect and savour nature, using abundant, diverse, and regenerative ingredients that emit lower CO2 emissions and drastically cut waste.
As Lee noted, “Constraints inspire creativity”. A clear example is THIC®, a chocolate alternative made from upcycled ingredients such as brewer’s spent grain and cacao shells, already featured in chocolate chip cookies sold across all 7/11 stores in Denmark.
Futurist Tony Hunter from Future Food Consulting, emphasised that “We can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions” pointing to five technologies that will shape food production:
- Alternative proteins
- Cellular agriculture
- Genomics
- Microbiome
- Synthetic biology
Some exciting emerging examples included cell-cultivated pet food (Meatly), cows milk (remilk), and coffee beans (VTT Technical Research Centre), Rubisco protein extraction from green leaves (The Leaf Protein Co), and plant-based cat food (Unicorn Pate).
Food Waste
Simon Lockrey and Emil Krol from End Food Waste Australia reminded us just how big a problem food waste really is, both in Australia and globally. Shockingly it creates five times more CO2 emissions than the aviation industry.
Beyond the environmental impact, food waste impacts people and industry profitability. Reducing food waste could help feed millions of food-insecure Australians, save the economy a massive $36.6 billion a year, and build a more sustainable and resilient food system.
Households are the single largest contributor to food waste, responsible for over 30%. A key driver is confusion over storage and “best before” vs “use by” dates with 40% of Australian consumers not knowing the difference between the two. This shows the critical role packaging and consumer education on labelling plays in reducing food waste.
Food Security
Andrew Henderson from Agsecure challenged the assumption that Australia will always be food secure. Despite exporting 70% of agricultural production, food production is heavily reliant on critical imports, leaving the system vulnerable to geopolitical instability and potential disruptions to trade routes. He stressed that food security is national security, advocating for stronger regional self-reliance and preparedness. To this end, the National Food Security Preparedness Green Paper has been developed to deepen understanding of food security as a key public policy issue.
As the industry looks ahead, the insights from AIFST 2025 serve as both a roadmap and a call to action for building a resilient, sustainable food future.
