Prime Minister gets taste of kiwi food innovation and collaboration

The power of science and innovation to deliver high value food products was on full display this morning when FoodHQ Partners hosted Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson in Palmerston North. Manawatū based, FoodHQ is a national collaboration involving most of New Zealand’s leading food science and innovation organisations*. Its mission is to help businesses accelerate their development and commercialisation of high-value food products by making it easier for them to access the right expertise and facilities. FoodHQ CEO, Dr Abby Thompson says the ‘taste of kiwi innovation’ tour was put together to give Ms Ardern and Mr Robertson a flavour of what’s possible with the power of collaboration between scientists, innovators and food businesses . “Between our partners there are some amazing new product and technological developments underway. And there’s no doubt that by working closer together we can accelerate the transformation of low value commodities into high value exports.”
Dr Thompson says the visitors enjoyed getting a glimpse into some exciting new developments, such as the Riddet Institutes’ hybrid plant-animal protein products, Plant & Food’s recently launched Blackcurrant powered sports performance product 2before and Tahi Spirulina’s new product range. They also got to see a demonstration of kiwi start-up BioLumic’s yield enhancing UV light technology, taste the differences between the Chinese and Kiwi palates with AgResearch’s fermented foods and hear about how food safety research is supporting food exporters in capturing premiums for New Zealand products from the New Zealand Food Safety Science Research Centre.
The tour started at The Factory and concluded with a visit to Massey University’s FoodPilot - the largest collection of pilot-scale food processing equipment in the southern hemisphere During the tour students and researchers demonstrated a range of ground breaking food projects underway including a cream powder that dissolves in water and whips just like fresh cream; Hemp protein vegan ice cream and a dried carrot powder made from the by-product of carrot juice that can be used as a high fibre ingredient in food products. “I think what we’ve shown today is that there’s massive capability to add value to our food sector. The focus now is for New Zealand to do that as fast as we can for maximum economic effect, and collaborations like ours are key to driving that.”**

FoodHQ Partners include AgResearch, Massey University, Plant & Food Research, The Riddet Institute, The Factory, Cawthron, ESR the New Zealand Food Safety Science and Research Centre and B.linc Innovation (formerly Lincoln Hub).

For further information please contact:

Dr Abby Thompson, FoodHQ CEO 021 774 864 abby@foodhq.com