Page 18 - Food&Drink magazine July 2021

BY ASSOCIATION
How to champion manufacturing
If we look at manufacturing as a capability, it is more than production. Manufacturing is present wherever something is being made – be it food, vaccines, or medical equipment. Without manufacturing, or the ability to scale and commercialise, you are a research institution. It is research for research’s sake.
We must take our ideas and commercialise them. Our industry’s success should not be a secret and breakthroughs should not reside in publications alone. I say this because manufacturing is so critical to our present and future.
Sometimes over a BBQ
– enjoying the fruits of the food and beverage sectors labours – I hear the point that Australian manufacturing
no longer exists. No! This point of view could not be further from the truth. The truth is that manufacturing is misunderstood and misrepresented in the modern context.
Manufacturing is no longer limited to the visual of blue overall-clad workers, with sparks flying in the background. Manufacturing today is advanced and agile, populated by highly skilled Australians from all professions spanning the disciplines of R&D, design, logistics, production, distribution, sales and service.
Manufacturing today employs more Australians across these disciplines than the official numbers suggest, closer to 1.2 million employees and up to 3.6 times more than that as a consequence. That is correct: one job in manufacturing spurs 3.6 across the economy.
Manufacturing is so important that the federal government now has six National Manufacturing Priorities with food and beverage one of them.
Yet, for all the sector’s value, we shy away from telling our story and highlighting our advancements. Take for example a recent recipient of a co-funded grant via AMGC’s Commercialisation Fund, Harvest B.
The power of manufacturing is no secret, but there is still a lack of understanding and appreciation of the complexity and importance of the sector. Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre managing director Dr Jens Goennemann looks at how to change that.
ABOVE: HarvestB is embracing manufacturing innovation to produce plant-based proteins.
ADVANCED Manufacturing Growth Centre’s (AMGC) recent publication Ten Ways to Succeed in Australian Manufacturing, a report I encourage anyone interested in manufacturing to read, highlighted the issue
that often the value and impact of manufacturing goes unrealised.
Section one, Ten Ways
to Succeed highlights that while Australians recognise the economic importance
of manufacturing, they do not necessarily understand what manufacturing is. Part of that view comes from the fact that manufacturers are so busy doing good work that they do not take the time to tell their story.
As one New South Wales- based manufacturer put it, “We need people to care about the state of manufacturing. Otherwise, despite how innovative we are, or how much we want to collaborate, we will not be given prioritisation.”
If the past 18-months have demonstrated anything, it is that manufacturing capability is crucial to a nation’s ability to respond to a crisis. The food and beverage sector, along with many others, stood up and responded to the pandemic with aplomb. They leveraged their expertise and capabilities to manufacture everything from hand sanitiser to invasive ventilators – a feat virtually impossible if you do not have a strong baseline of capabilities.
18 | Food&Drink business | July 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au