Bio economy Study Group Tour 

April 2014 to Europe

By Max Kennedy, National Manager Biological Industries MBIE (with input from participants).

We started the tour by attending the Fouling & Cleaning in Food Processing 2014: ‘Green Cleaning’ Conference at Cambridge University.  This is an infrequent conference and was an excellent chance to meet with the world’s best engineers and microbiologists in this area of crucial importance to food safety in New Zealand.  Another excellent opportunity was that some members of the group were invited to give a presentation to the Food and Beverage Special Interest Group of the Institution of Chemical Engineers in London.  The interest in the New Zealand group was such that the meeting went on for over 2 hours with lots of questions, followed by time to engage with chemical engineers from the UK food industry and academia. It was particularly pleasing to meet with IChemE members who had taken their evening to travel, often quite long distances, to meet with the group.

Organisations visited included;

• Institute of Food Research, Norwich
• University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Nottingham
• The French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Microbiology and Food Process Engineering Unit, Grignon
• AgroParisTech UMR, Genial, Massy
• SEPAREX, Champigneulles
• The Food Valley, Wageningen
• Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR), Wageningen
• FeyeCon D&I B.V., Weesp
• Technical University Munich, Freising
• Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV , Freising

What came out of all this?  MBIE has provided funding of up to $100K each for up to 5 of the best collaborations that come out of the tour.  Many research collaborations are expected to develop over the coming months.  Prioritisation of the opportunities was a greater issue for participants than finding something relevant to engage on.  The participants offer the best description of the value of the connections generated:

Stefan Clerens, AgResearch  “Especially in France and Germany, AgResearch identified a number of research teams with capabilities and facilities complementary to its own expertise. New collaborative opportunities are currently under development with INRA and the Fraunhofer institute include staff exchanges, a joint PhD programme and development of industry-targeted tools for managing food processing efficiency.”

Janis Swan, Waikato University  “there are large collaborative projects, across the EU.  This allows for diversity as well as interaction and sharing of facilities.  New Zealand researchers and developers can leverage off the contact.  It is pleasing to see there are funding opportunities for short exchanges (both ways) to exchange expertise and have the use of some excellent resources and facilities.  It is also pleasant to appreciate that New Zealand researchers are often much closer to industry than their counterparts in European research institutes.”

Richard Archer, Massey University “There is a higher emphasis in Europe on replacing calorific physically functional ingredients with non-calorific substitutes – eg particles which behave in a baked systems as starch granules would but are really structured cellulose or xanthan. Combining the waste-reduction goals and the reduced calorie intake goals is leading to projects to convert various wastes into foods (including chaff, straw, root vegetable tops, peal and skin).  I found the Europeans welded high tech and food industries together better than we do.  The European mind-set is more mature on this score – they understand that food manufacturing is their biggest single manufacturing industry sector so a big user of modern capital goods.  They understand better than we do the evolution of agriculture through food to wellness to life-sciences; the evolution undergone by companies, technologies, industries and economies. They make much deliberate use of the triple helix – government, research and industry being increasingly intertwined within institutions, consortia and programmes of activity.   We are doing it, but they are really doing it.”

John Morgan, New Zealand Food Innovation Network “The trip provided some useful insight into how major European Research Institutes work with Industry.  I was particularly impressed with the integration in Holland with Wageningen UR working on exciting new technology linked through the facilitation of Food Valley to firms raring to adopt the results.  This was also very evident at the Fraunhofer in Germany.  There are some good lessons for New Zealand but in many areas we are right up with the pace.”

Chris Insley, 37 Degrees South Ltd, “The FRIENZ Europe study tour that I have been involved in for two years now is an incredible opportunity to understand and seek out existing technologies from across the leading technology institutes across Europe towards finding leading European technologies and world class research partners and practically engaging these with our Maori businesses. I now have practical discussion with the Wageningen Institute in the Netherlands where I lead a project to bring the best greenhouse technology to Kawerau to connect to our geothermal steam interests towards large scale food productive as part of a larger 5 Year Maori owned Innovative Foods strategy that will involve other leading European Research Institutes like Fraunhofer in Germany with their leading robotics and automation capabilities, Separex in France with their leading extractives and super critical CO2 capabilities. 

Importantly too now part of my dialogue with these leading institutes is to explore opportunities to send our young Maori research and business commercialisation students to study and learn in these world leading institutes as part of much longer strategy towards building resilience into our research and Maori business organisations. I am exploring this space with my contacts at both Wageningen and Fraunhofer Institutes. Because as Maori we take a long term intergenerational view, growing our young people through these strategic partnerships will ensure our strategy will be durable not just for us as Maori, but indeed for all New Zealanders.”

The results have been so positive that the FREINZ group will organise a mission in which European food processing experts come to New Zealand later in the year.  The important message is that connecting internationally has never been more important for New Zealand to enhance our innovation system to boost the export value from food, just ask any of the participants.

Participants:

• Amanda Suddes PhD, PMP Research and Development Head, Manuka Health New Zealand
• Chris (Karamea) Insley Managing Director, 37 Degrees South Limited
• Graham Fletcher Research Team Leader, Food Safety and Preservation, Seafood Technologies, the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited 
• Prof. Janis Swan Associate Dean – Engineering at the University of Waikato, Hamilton 
• John Morgan South Island Manager, New Zealand Food Innovation Network 
• Jonathan Cox Innovation Centre Manager – ANZCO Foods Ltd
• Leah Davey Business Manager for Process Cleaning Technologies at Orica New Zealand 
• Megan Howard New Product Development Management J.H. Whittaker and Sons Ltd
• Richard Archer Professor and Head of Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health, Massey University
• Sarita Males Chief Executive Officer at N.Z. Food Innovation Auckland (The FoodBowl, Callaghan Innovation)
• Dr Stefan Clerens Science Team Leader of the Proteins & Biomaterials team, AgResearch
• Max Kennedy, National Manager Biological Industries, MBIE
• Bruce McCallum, Science Counsellor Brussels, MBIE