The Food & Drink Business Podcast

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Scott Fry, co-founder of Loving Earth, a maker of vegan, organic, fair trade chocolate, about making amazing chocolate, climate and digital assets. From years spent in India and Mexico working with small Indigenous farming cooperatives, Scott talks about how witnessing the impact of urbanisation, industrial expansion, mining, and the destruction...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to James Ajaka, CEO of Darrell Lea, about his first year running the company and what we can look forward to from Darrell Lea. We start the episode with James reviewing the highlights of his first year as CEO, the importance of balancing available resources against opportunities and the benefits being realised from efforts made by previous teams wit...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to deep tech venture capital company Main Sequence director Phil Morle about synthetic biology, Australia’s role and potential in the sector and projects already underway. We look specifically at precision fermentation, its ability to recreate animal fats and why that will be key in shifting consumers to a plant-based diet. As the global population...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador, Skye Raward, the co-founder of Food Futures, and Dr Kirsten Wilkie, senior beverage technologist at Givaudan, about the increasing the presence of women in STEM related fields. The episode starts with Lisa providing a review of statistics for women undertaking STEM related studies...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Shawn Andrews, founder of Dhuwa Coffee, Australia’s first indigenous owned, managed and controlled coffee enterprise, and Peter Patisteas, managing director of Griffiths Brothers coffee roasters. We start the episode with a discussion on coffee and its role in bringing people together. Shawn explains how the communal nature of coffee was part of...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Matt Michalewicz, founder of Artificial Intelligence software specialist Complexica, on AI’s application in the food and beverage sector. From growing up in a household immersed in the field of AI, Matt has gone on to build his own career in the field, culminating in his current enterprise, Complexica. We start with a quick AI 101 and discuss how...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Nusqe Spanton, CEO & founder of Provectus Algae, about commercialising one of the oldest microbes on planet Earth. Following a quick review of Nusqe's background in aquaculture, the discussion moves on to the forming of Provectus Algae, the difficulty of growing oysters and the algae species they consume and how different algae species can of...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Matthew Salter, the new managing director of General Mills ANZ, about being an industry leader for a global company. After six years based in Switzerland, Matt is back on home soil, keen to use and build on the skills learnt from managing truly multicultural teams. We talk about what it takes to build team cohesion and common goals when people br...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Tony Hunter, global food futurist and consultant, about the collision between food and technology happening on the cutting edge of food production Tony starts by explaining what his trademarked concept TECHXponential is, and how it is driving mind-blowing innovation and production methods in food and beverage manufacturing. Plant-based proteins a...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to John O'Connor, founder of Goodradigbee Distillers about his journey into the world of distilling spirits and what happens when you age them in Australian hardwoods. We start by discovering how John went from running his own advertising agency and working with some of the world’s leading alcohol brands, to being the unpaid intern and learning the...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Julia Seddon, the CEO and director of sustainability consulting firm Cress Consulting, on the critical need for sustainability to be a key component of a company’s risk analysis and management planning. By 2030, 2019 will look like a ‘normal’ year. When we consider how impactful 2019 was in terms of extreme weather, it becomes clear that the clim...

In this episode, Lindy Hughson, Publisher of Food & Drink Business and Sam Bakshi, Asia Pacific Integrated Marketing Manager and Sustainable Packaging Segment Leader at 3M, talk about how packaging can solve challenges that the food and drink industry faces today. Sam speaks with Lindy about how automation in packaging is one of 3M’s long term areas of specialisation, and how they help food an...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks with Will and Eddie Brook about the trajectory of growing up with their premium muesli pioneering parents Pam and Martin Brook, of Brookfarm fame, to now running the family business, creating Cape Byron Distillery and building an entirely new business model with We, the many. The episode starts with Will and Eddie’s recollections of growing up durin...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks about machine vision solutions for food and beverage packaging with FPC Food Plastics managing director Hugh Donelly and Murtaza Nasir, the machine vision and distance sensors market product manager for SICK Australia. Hugh gives us a history of FPC Food Plastics before we shift to Murtaza explaining machine vision and how it can be applied to the p...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks with former CEO of Gourmet Food Holdings Todd Wilson about the experience of running a start-up and the lessons learnt along the way to becoming a market leader. The discussion starts with reviewing the market opportunity that inspired the creation of Gourmet Foods Australia, covering how it was initiated and the effort involved in building a start-...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry speaks with Australian Beverages Council CEO Geoff Parker on its report into Australians’ changing consumption of non-alcoholic beverages. In possibly a world first, the Australian Beverages Council has commissioned a 20-year longitudinal trend analysis into Australian sales of sugar sweetened beverages from 1997 to 2018. Geoff talks about how the non-alc...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry speaks with Hamish Thomson, the author of “It’s not always right to be right, and other hard-won leadership lessons” to discuss leadership within the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry. Formerly with Mars, Hamish has built a solid career of leadership within FMCG organisations, distilling his knowledge into a book that provides practical steps and...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry is joined by Phil Morle, partner at Main Sequence Ventures, and Nick Hazell, CEO of v2foods, to discuss venture capital partnerships in the alternative protein industry. The episode begins by discussing industry opportunities for venture capital funds and the importance of capital being used to fund research and subsequent development. After revisiting th...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry talks to Simplot Australia innovation and growth executive director Angeline Achariya about what innovation in the food and beverage sector looks like. The conversation starts with Angeline discussing her career and background in FMCG along with how she became involved with innovation. She explains how she defines innovation and the many factors involved...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry discusses greater gender equity in operational roles with Kellogg's Australia manufacturing director Maggie Pillay and National Association of Women in Operations (NAWO) CEO Louise Weine. We start the discussion with Louise telling us about NAWO, the key industry areas that make up operations and the ratio of women in each industry area, followed by Maggi...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry is joined by Karen Job, head of industry engagement with the independent think tank for alternative proteins Food Frontier to discuss its report into the plant-based meat industry in Australia. The discussion covers consumer engagement, new product and industry developments, the formats that plant-based meats are taking, and the challenges and opportuniti...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry is joined by Matthew Dunn, three-time Olympian and CEO of Proform Foods to talk about plant-based protein, their new MEET brand and growth plans. Matt shares the company’s origin story, with his father Stephen Dunn creating Proform Foods in 2008 based on his pioneering research with the CSIRO in 2005 and 2006 on large scale plant-based protein production....

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry is joined by Dr Steve Lapidge, the inaugural CEO of Fight Food Waste Ltd, which incorporates the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre and Stop Food Waste Australia. She's also joined by Dr Simon Lockrey, a leading sustainability and design innovation researcher who has been based at RMIT since 2009 and is now a key leader in the Fight Food Waste C...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry is joined by the managing director of Pure Foods Tasmania, Michael Cooper. From licking the stickers for bottles of juice in his family’s juice business as a kid, Michael is now leading a company with plans to be a $100 million company in five years. We discuss the company’s growth through acquisitions and capital raising, the fact that plant-based foods...

Food & Drink Business editor Kim Berry reviews the 2020 Top 100 Food & Drink Companies Report with Senior Industry Analyst Matthew Reeves from IBISWorld, covering the movements within the list along with the factors that fuelled the changes. During the discussion, a number of causes are noted including re-organisations and changes to reporting periods, COVID-19, climate impacts, changes in...