FIAL’s outgoing Chair, Professor Roy Green, said, ‘I am delighted that FIAL will continue its role as industry ‘leader’ to realise our vision of one sector, one value chain, and one food system. 

“It’s about agriculture and food manufacturing working together to deliver domestic and global market success.” 

Over the past decade, FIAL has driven the cultural and business change needed in Australia’s food and agribusiness sector and helped overcome barriers to innovation, productivity, and growth. 

FIAL’s Managing Director, Dr Mirjana Prica, said, ‘FIAL has become the sector’s trusted partner. Building that trust is too valuable to lose, so we will introduce a new range of services in the coming months. We will build on our strengths around supporting market activities whilst attracting investment for the right business strategy and innovation. 

“Not surprisingly, we want to share some of our key successes during this time. We were provided with $45.96M of Australian taxpayer funds to drive this change, and indeed we did with sector growth of almost 80%, and a contribution to Gross Value Add of $95.9B in 2023. 

“Analysis by ACIL Allen concluded that our work, including innovation grants to turn great ideas into products and services, delivered a $231.7M contribution to Australian GDP and created 1481 full-time equivalent jobs in 2021-2022. 

“For every dollar of Commonwealth funds invested in innovation and related activities, there was a return on investment of 14.9 of direct and indirect benefits. 

“Extraordinary! Which is why we are not stopping anytime soon. 

“We look forward to continuing to deliver solutions that lead to tangible impact and make a real difference to businesses, the industry, sector and Australia.” 

ENDS 

About FIAL 

Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL) is the catalyst that encourages the food and agribusiness industry to work collaboratively to grow the share of Australian food in the global marketplace. FIAL supports the industry through targeted services including sharing knowledge, building capability and creating connections. 

FIAL’s knowledge sharing, and capacity-building activities helped more than 9,000 businesses and other stakeholders improve their innovation and market readiness. Collaboration has been at the heart of these initiatives, with FIAL’s cluster program accelerating the growth of 12 regional clusters, targeting the 98% of sector businesses who are small to medium sized. Many of these businesses benefited from the on-line digital tools developed by FIAL such as FIAL's Australian Food & Beverage Catalogue, and Trade Barriers Register. 

Read more about FIAL’s impact here> 

For media and interview requests, contact: 

Tanya Wilkins 

Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL) 

+61 481 744 550 Email: marketing@fial.com.au

Australia’s 180,000 agri-food businesses are on track to unlock over $200 billion in value and create an additional 300,000 jobs by 2030.

According to the Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre, trading as FIAL, increased collaboration between businesses across the value chain, is one of the factors that will help catalyse the sector’s ability to unlock the $200 billion potential for the agri-food sector, outlined in FIAL’s Capturing the Prize, released in late 2020.

To feed this potential, FIAL is providing new funding to build on the successful Cluster Program. $600,000 in matched-funding will be available to new and existing agri-food clusters across Australia, supporting their ability to capture growth opportunities.  

This critical funding injection will support the agri-food sector’s continued movement toward unlocking $200 billion in value and creating an additional 300,000 jobs by 2030.

Clusters are regional groups of interconnected businesses, researchers, and government agencies that create local ecosystems of resources, shared labour, infrastructure, knowledge, and relationships. This accelerates innovation, strengthens supply chains, and allows greater value to be captured.  

“Clustering is the answer for how Australia’s 180,000 agri-food businesses, 98% of which are small to medium enterprises (SMEs), can achieve the economies-of-scale required to harness the growth opportunities that are guiding the sector toward a $200 billion by 2030, said FIAL Managing Director, Dr Mirjana Prica.

This current funding builds on the success of FIAL’s Cluster Program that provided $900,000 of matched-funding to equip four clusters – FermenTasmania, Food and Fibre Gippsland, Central Coast Industry Connect, Food and Agribusiness Network - with the resources and support to sustainably grow.

“Funding received through FIAL’s Cluster Program in 2017 has supported the agri-food businesses in regions to commercialise new products and export to new markets. I encourage as many new, emerging, or existing clusters to apply for a share of the $600,000 now available,” said Dr Mirjana Prica.

“FIAL’s 2021 Cluster Grant Program is an investment in our nation. Supporting agri-food businesses to collaborate will supercharge their abilities to scale-up, compete internationally and create jobs for Australians,” said FIAL Chair, Dr. Michele Allan.

About the Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre:

Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL) is the Food and Agribusiness Growth Centre. Industry-led and funded by the Australian Government, FIAL catalyses growth for businesses operating across the agri-food value chain. For more information, www.fial.com.au 

For more information on FIAL’s Cluster Grant Program 2021: https://www.fial.com.au/cluster-grants-program

Media Contact:

Peta Slack-Smith

Peta.slack-smith@fial.com.au

0400 171 957