All PFN ARTICLES

Nearly 26,000 producers have embraced a simpler route from farm to consumer, true 'food power'. Australia and New Zealand could learn from it. While Australia and New Zealand grapple with grocery bills and supermarket dominance, Poland has been building another route to the dinner table. Its agricultural retail trade scheme allows eligible farmers to turn their own ingredients into bread, preserves, juices and other foods, then sell directly under simplified rules.

A new global food biotech shortlist isn't the final word on who will shape 2027, but it provides a remarkably telling picture of where food biotech is heading. Protein Production Technology International (PPTI) has shortlisted 81 companies from 379 nominations for its eventual 27 Food-Techs to Watch in 2027. Public voting remains open until October 23, with the final 27 due to be revealed in Amsterdam in November. So this is not yet the Top 27.

Peru's blueberry industry has provided an early glimpse of what the strengthening El Niño could mean for global food production. But the emerging story isn't simply one of drought, crop failures and shortages. El Niño is changing where and increasingly when food is produced. For Australia and New Zealand, that presents risks, but also opportunities.

France has reinforced its commitment to the future of food production, allocating a further €20 million (approximately US$22 million) to the second phase of its Ferments du Futur programme under the country's France 2030 strategy. The investment extends one of Europe's largest public-private fermentation initiatives and signals that advanced fermentation is increasingly being viewed as strategic national infrastructure rather than simply another emerging food technology.

Australian vegetable growers are warning one of the best winter growing seasons in years is delivering some of the poorest financial returns. Across Queensland, growers say diesel, freight, fertiliser and packaging costs remain well above historical levels while consumers, squeezed by rising living costs, are buying fewer fresh vegetables. The result is a painful mismatch between excellent crops and shrinking farmgate returns.

The achacha, known locally as achachairú or "honey kiss", has been cultivated for generations in Bolivia. Yet it was Australian growers who established the world's first large-scale commercial plantation in North Queensland in 2003, investing years of research into propagation, irrigation, pruning and post-harvest handling before the first commercial harvests appeared in 2009.

Consumers won't be buying cultivated foods in the form of cell-cultured duck next month, but Australia's food innovation pipeline may have just become much more interesting.

Australian supermarket giant Coles Group has awarded more than AUD$3.5 million to eight emerging food and agriculture businesses, signalling where one of the region's largest retailers sees future growth opportunities.

New Zealand did not lose a seaweed company. It lost a seat at the table of a rapidly emerging global methane-reduction industry. CH4 Global was established in New Zealand in 2019 with the goal of commercialising Asparagopsis seaweed as a methane-reducing livestock feed supplement. The technology works. Research has repeatedly shown methane reductions of up to 90 percent or more in cattle. Investors backed the company. Global demand emerged. International partnerships followe

The cultivated meat race has officially gone to the dogs. Italian petfood company FORZA10 has launched “Coolty Meat”, a complete dog food containing 26% cultivated meat supplied by Czech biotech company Bene Meat Technologies, unveiled this week at the global pet industry expo Interzoo 2026. The companies are calling it the world’s first commercially launched complete cultivated meat dog food, positioning the product as hypoallergenic, cruelty-free and planet-friendly.

Amazon doesn’t do “dabbling”. When it partners with a premium food retailer, history suggests it’s usually step one, not the end game. The new Amazon–Harris Farm Markets grocery tie-up in Sydney, Australia, looks tidy on the surface, same-day delivery, curated fresh food, Amazon Flex drivers, but beneath it sits a bigger question: is Harris Farm being quietly groomed as Amazon’s Whole Foods analogue for Australia?

“There’s never been a better time for ANZ artisanal food producers to enter the China market.” That’s the assessment from Iain Langridge, MD of In2AsiaExports, who has spent more than a decade helping premium international food and wine brands establish themselves across China’s fast-evolving and ever changing food landscape.