Future Food Systems CRC projects bring industry, academic and government partners together to solve real-world challenges. In this event, we showcase a cross-section of exciting collaborations presented by our industry partners and research experts.
Sessions will cover:
- Specialist food-industry clusters and fostering trade, through projects such as our ‘Blockchain for smart trade’, ‘Coffs analytics’, ‘Commercialising native rice’ and ‘National map of protected cropping systems’ collaborations;
- Novel tech and data-enabled solutions for future farming systems, as exemplified by projects with WBS, Perfection Fresh, LLEAF and Hort Innovation;
- Innovation in value-added foods and precision nutrition goods through projects with Sanitarium, WA DPIRD, Bruker and EcoMag.
A compelling speaker line-up includes industry partner reps Dr John Ashton, from Sanitarium Health Food Company, Adj. Prof. Warwick Powell, Chair of digital trade hub start-up BeefLedger; Dr Tam Tran, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer for exciting SME EcoMag, and Dr Alex Soeriyadi, developer of innovative ‘smart’ agricultural film LLEAF; alongside research experts from our university partners across Australia.
Registration and further information
The showcase will be held via Zoom videoconference. Attendance is free but pre-registration is essential. Once you have registered you’ll be sent a Zoom link for the event.
To register, click here.
If you have queries or require further information about the event, please contact:
- Emma Hills, CRC Administration Officer: emma.hills@futurefoodsystems.com.au or +61 (0)478 935 690; or
- Cordelia Selomulya, CRC Research & Commercialisation Director: cordelia.selomulya@futurefoodsystems.com.au or +61 (0)412 287 453.
The Smart Trade Hubs program project team, with Adj. Prof Warwick Powell of BeefLedger front and centre. Credit: Queensland University of Technology
Showcase agenda
12.30-12.35pm: Welcome and introduction
Professor Cordelia Selomulya, UNSW School of Chemical Engineering and CRC Research & Commercialisation Director.
12.35-1.25pm: Program 1
Projects laying the groundwork for future-focused agrifood hubs, and developing smart digital platforms that prove the provenance of premium Australian goods to consumers in lucrative export markets.
- 12.35-12.40pm: Overview – Prof. Doug Baker (QUT), Program 1 lead.
- 12.40-12.55pm: General purpose digital infrastructure enabling cross-border trade – Adj. Prof. Warwick Powell (BeefLedger). Read more about BeefLedger here. Read more about the ‘Smart Trade Hubs’ project here.
- 12.55-1.10pm: Sowing seeds to grow the Coffs Coast food ecosystem – Dr Ozgur Dedehayir (QUT). Read more about the ‘Coffs analytics’ project here.
- 1.10-1.20pm: Commercialisation of Australian native rice – Prof. Sagadevan G. Mundree (QUT). Read more about the ‘Commercialising native rice’ project here.
- 1.20-1.25pm: Mapping protected cropping systems in Australia, industry engagement featuring the PCS Survey – Craig Shephard (UNE) & Joel McKechnie (UNE). Read more about the ‘National map of protected cropping systems’ project here.
Distinguished Professor David Tissue in the experimental glasshouse on WSU’s Hawkesbury campus with Greenhouse Facility Coordinator Chelsea Maier. Credit: Sally Tsoutas for Western Sydney University
1.25-2.15pm: Program 2
Projects exploring technological and data-driven solutions for future protected-cropping systems, including customised light-spectra-selective films, advanced IoT sensor set-ups for indoor-cropping operations and cost-effective, scalable modular systems for vertical farms.
- 1.25-1.30pm: Overview – Distinguished Professor David Tissue (WSU) CRC Research Program 2 lead.
- 1.30-1.45pm: Luminescent Light Emitting Agricultural Film (LLEAF): The next evolution of protected cropping to increase crop productivity sustainably – Dr Alex Soeriyadi (LLEAF Pty Ltd). Read more about LLEAF here and about the ‘Smart Glass’ project here.
- 1.45-2pm: Remote sensing technology in protected cropping – Dr Yimeng Feng (UNSW) & Mark Cardamis (UNSW). Read more about the ‘IoT for indoor cropping’ project here.
- 2-2.15pm: Artificial automation of precision pollination of crops – Dr Chris Cazzonelli (WSU). Read more about the ‘Acoustic pollination’ project here.
Dr Ruey-Leng Loo, a senior research scientist at the Australian National Phenome Centre at Murdoch University, WA. Credit: Murdoch University
2.15-3pm: Program 3
Projects helping to increase the value-adding capability of Australia’s agrifood sector through innovations in QA and production protocols, formulation for high-value customised goods, verifying functional foods and precision nutrition products, and developing circular-economy-based design solutions for future food factories.
- 2.15-2.20pm: Overview – Mr Mike Ridout, Research Engagement Manager (Murdoch University).
- 2.20-2.35pm: Sanitarium development and innovation research projects – Dr John Ashton (Sanitarium). Read more about Sanitarium here. Read more about our Sanitarium projects: ‘Improving plant-based food’ here, ‘New protein production’ here and ‘Art of grain drying’ here.
- 2.35-2.50pm: Analytical techniques for value-added solutions – Dr Ruey-Leng Loo (Murdoch University/ANPC). Read more about the ANPC here and about the DPIRD/Bruker ‘Metabolic food library’ project here.
- 2.50-3.05pm: Collaboration in process improvement: Spray-drying of EcoMag magnesium-based products at UNSW – Dr Tam Tran (EcoMag). Read more about EcoMag here and about the EcoMag ‘Nutraceutical Spray Drying’ project here.
3.05-3.10pm: Concluding remarks
Prof. Cordelia Selomulya, UNSW.
Professor Cordelia-Selomulya. CRC Research & Commercialisation Director. Credit: UNSW Sydney
About the speakers
Prof. Cordelia Selomulya, University of New South Wales
Cordelia Selomulya joined UNSW in late 2019 as a Professor (Food & Health) in the School of Chemical Engineering and as Research & Commercialisation Director for the Future Food Systems CRC. Prior to her UNSW she was an ARC Future Fellow at Monash University, where she also led the Biotechnology and Food Engineering group, which had an internationally recognised reputation in particle engineering and drying technology research, particularly for food and dairy applications. Read more about Prof. Selomulya here.
Prof. Doug Baker, Queensland University of Technology
Doug Baker is a Professor in the School of Built Environment at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. His areas of expertise include land-use planning, airport management, regional air transport and infrastructure logistics. Read more about Prof. Baker here
Prof. Sagadevan G. Mundree, Queensland University of Technology
Sagadevan is currently the Director of the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy at Queensland University of Technology. Prior to joining QUT, he was a Senior Executive in the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (QPIF) where he led a team that was responsible for QPIF’s Investments in Research, Development and Extension in all the primary industries of Queensland. Read more about Prof. Mundree here.
Craig Shephard, University of New England
Craig holds a Bachelor of Science, with expertise in R&D and the application of web-GIS technology. Location is the common framework for integrating data, delivering data via web-GIS opens it up to all. Read more here.
Joel McKechnie, University of New England
Joel holds a BSc with expertise in R&D and GIS. He combines this experience with field surveying, stakeholder engagement and citizen science to capture, analyse and share spatial information that facilitates his research partners to make better decisions, driven by data. Read more here.
Dr Ozgur Dedehayir, Queensland University of Technology
Dr Ozgur (Oz) Dedehayir is passionate about food. Not only does he love to cook; he loves exploring food innovation. In recent years, his research has focused on the rise of plant-based food innovation and entrepreneurship. He also organised what was arguably the world’s first plant-based cooking contest in Brisbane. Read more about Dr Dedehayir here.
Adj. Prof. Warwick Powell, BeefLedger
Warwick Powell is the chairman and founder of BeefLedger Ltd and an Adjunct Professor of QUT. BeefLedger is a blockchain-based supply chain tracking and payments platform development company. Read more about Adj. Prof. Powell here.
Dist. Prof. David Tissue, Western Sydney University
Distinguished Professor David Tissue is the Scientific Research Director for the National Vegetable Protected Cropping Centre (NVPCC) and Discipline Leader for Agriculture and Food Science at WSU. He has a long history of working alongside agricultural industries in the United States and Australia. Read more about Dist. Prof. Tissue here.
Dr Yimeng Feng, Postdoctoral Research Associate, UNSW Sydney
Dr Yimeng Feng joined the University of New South Wales as a Postdoc Research Associate in 2021. She was a dual PhD researcher at University of Technology Sydney and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Current areas of interest include the Internet of Things (IoT) in farming. Read more about Ms Feng here.
Mark Cardamis, PhD candidate, UNSW Sydney
In 2008, Mark Cardamis completed a Bachelor of Engineering with a Major in Mechatronics (First Class Honours) from UNSW Sydney. He is interested in farms of the future and is currently working on the ‘IoT for indoor cropping’ project. Read more about Mr Cardamis here.
Dr Chris Cazzonelli, Western Sydney University
Dr Chris Cazzonelli is a Senior Lecturer in Plant Molecular Biology at Western Sydney University. He leads the Environmental Epigenetics Laboratory to discover molecular mechanisms that program morphological adaptation and maintain metabolic homeostasis in plants responding to mechanical stimulation and light-mediated stress. Read more about Dr Cazzonelli here.
Dr Alexander Soeriyadi, Co-founder and CEO, LLEAF Pty Ltd
Dr Alex Soeriyadi is a chemical engineer with a PhD from UNSW. His previous academic achievements include an Australian Museum Eureka Finalist accolade and a NHMRC fellowship. In LLEAF, Dr Soeriyadi has created a patent-pending material that engineers light (such as sunlight) to improve the crop growth cycle. Read more about Dr Soeriyadi here.
Mike Ridout, Research Engagement Manager, Murdoch University
Mike Ridout is helping to build collaborative ventures based on R&D and innovation. He brings experience in national and international industry, R&D and innovation networks to his work in complex, multi-sector environments across corporate, government and research sectors. Read more about Mr Ridout here.
Dr Ruey-Leng Loo, Murdoch University
Ruey-Leng Loo is a Western Australia Premier’s Early to Mid-Career Fellow and a senior researcher at Murdoch University’s Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC). She has expertise in epidemiological studies and in data analytics for metabolic phenotyping. Her research delivers new knowledge of dietary impacts on human metabolism and health/disease, and provides a translational bridge to the food science industry. Read more about Dr Loo here.
Dr John Ashton, Strategic Research Manager, Sanitarium
John Ashton BSc(Hons) PhD MSc CChem FRACI FAIFST is Strategic Research Manager for the Sanitarium Health Food Company and serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Food Chemistry & Biophysics Group at RMIT University. He has authored 50 peer reviewed research papers, six book chapters and 15 books. Read more about Dr Ashton here.
Dr Tam Tran, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, EcoMag
After completing a PhD at UNSW, Tam Tran worked at BHP Research Labs, Newcastle before returning to UNSW in 2008. He then spent nine years with Chonnam National University leading a research team working on new energy material processing. Dr Tran was a co-developer of the EcoMag technology, used to recover high-purity magnesium from the waste bitterns of a solar salt operation in Karratha, WA. The company is commercialising this project, aiming to produce pharmaceutical-grade products such as Mg carbonate, oxide, hydroxide and Mg organic salts from this abundant resource. Read more about Dr Tran here.