Food Leaders Australia holds first Meat Up for 2019
Jeff Schultheiss, Darling Fresh Consulting and Karen Hyland, Prime Super, at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Kevin Norman of Farmscan AG, Stephen Montgomery of MarchNet and Bruce McConnel of TSBE Food Leaders Australia at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Neil Luu of NXG3N China, Andreas Ruthjersen of Canex Resources and Nathan Nguyen of NXG3N Robotics at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
John Kynoch and David Moffitt from NAB at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Lorinda Otto of the Department of Employment, Small Business and Training, Andreas Ruthjersen of Canex Resources and Kylie Ruthjersen of ProPallet Professional Pallet Management.
Margaret Jewell of Premise Group Services, Jeff Schultheiss of Darling Fresh Consulting, Matt Norton of Premise and Karen Hyland of Prime Super at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Geraldie Doumany of Food Leaders Australia, John Whitfield of TSA Agribusiness and Neil Luu of NX3N China.
Nathan MacNamara of ANZ, Emily Pullen of Jim's Jerky and Tyson Hosie of ANZ at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Wazid Mohammed of Fitton Insur ance (Brokers) Australia Pty Ltdand Marshall Blacklock of CDI Pest Management at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Michael Matthewson of Foodability Co. Pty Ltd, Ryan Dewson of Master Hire and Stephen Williamson of AFEX at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Kevin Norman of Farmscan AG and Stephen Montgomery of MarchNet.
Andre Barkhuizen of 180 Partners Pty Ltd and Craig Leschke of Retracom Toowoomba at the TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up.
Industry representatives have come together to mingle and get a taste of TSBE Food Leaders Australia's plans for 2019.
About 50 people gathered on Wednesday night at Toowoomba Central Plaza's Centro Bar and Restaurant for the first TSBE Food Leaders Australia Meat Up for 2019.
TSBE Food Leaders Australia general manager Bruce McConnel said the body, which is part of Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise, has big plans for 2019.
The include the second year of the Emerging Exporters program, an event to help connect the food and hospitality sector with the local supply chain and a trip to the US to learn how to better foster ag tech innovation.
Mr McConnel said Emerging Exporters was a three-year program funded by Shell's QGC Project and each year 10 food businesses were given guidance to become export-ready.
Last year was the first year of the program, and soon a new cohort of participants will be chosen.
"From last year, two of them have already done a shipment of export product," he said.
"We expect to see this year's cohort really grow in that space.
"By the end of the program we expect we might have 15 export businesses in the region that we didn't have before."
Meanwhile, TSBE will hold an Enterprise Evening on March 14 in Roma, delving into supply chain opportunities with business in the area.
"Gas camps and the like could buy local but they don't know where to go so we want to provide information about local supply chains and make those connections," Mr McConnel said.
"If as a tourist you go to Roma, you want to eat local beef so we want to help make that happen."
This week Mr McConnel will fly to the US to learn about innovation in ag tech, visiting Silicon Valley, Colorado and Texas.
"It's about making sure we have the right ecosystem for allowing that innovation in ag tech," he said.
