Food tech precinct connecting university to the industry

Jackie Jarvis, Minister for Agriculture and Food, and Don Punch, Minister for Regional Development, launched the Food Innovation Precinct of Western Australia (FIPWA) during the Shire of Murray launch event.

Murdoch’s Food Science and Nutrition campus is part of FIPWA and establishes a destination for food professionals and researchers committed to advancing knowledge and production of food.

Under the guidance of food scientist Vicky Solah, the campus has already graduated its first class of Bachelor of Food Science and Nutrition students.

“This is a really exciting development for food research in Western Australia as it embeds our students and scientists within an established business precinct in the Peel region,” Solah said.

Solah’s research sits at the interface between food and nutrition science with an emphasis on linkages between food composition and structure, how food is processed and human nutrition.

“This new campus puts us shoulder to shoulder with the very food and beverage enterprises that we’re training the next generations of workers to join,” Solah said.

The centre focuses on high-impact areas in the industry, including extending the shelf life of food without compromising nutrition and flavour, developing new food and beverage products and nutritional profiling of foods and sensory evaluation.

Ahead of the launch, Solah and her team used the new position to connect PhD researchers with industry in collaborative dairy and horticulture research.

One of these projects was with Bannister Downs Dairy.

“Our research collaboration with Murdoch’s food science and nutrition team in 2022 confirmed what we suspected — Western Australian milk is nutritionally different,” said Suzanne Daubney, Managing Director Bannister Downs.

This collaboration presented Bannister Downs and other businesses in the industry with a scientifically proven point of difference. This type of project — proving and finding new nutritional benefits to local produce — is a major opportunity for the collaborative centre.

In an international export market that places a high value on provenance and nutrition, having scientifically proven claims are a powerful differentiator for local producers. It also sits squarely within Solah’s vision for the centre.

Murdoch’s Food Science and Nutrition campus is complemented by the Food Technology Facility (FTF) at FIPWA, which features a food manufacturing pilot plant to test innovations at batch scale to assist commercialisation.

The FTF is operated jointly by Murdoch, the Future Food Systems Cooperative Research Centre and Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. It will assist food businesses to test, develop and produce products using advanced manufacturing technologies.

James Krahe, CEO of Future Food Systems CRC, said, “I am very excited by the potential of FIPWA to become the central location for future food value-adding in WA as well as wider Australia.”

FIPWA is managed by the Shire of Murray and made possible with funding support provided by the Australian Government and the government of Western Australia.

Image credit: iStock.com/AlexRaths