Page 10 - Food&Drink March 2022

✷ RISING STAR
On the upcycle
More than seven million tonnes of food is wasted in Australia every year, costing the country more than $20 billion. Start-up TUI Foods is determined to turn the food chain on its head and rebuild it into an equitable and sustainable model that could be adopted globally. Kim Berry writes.
ALMOST a third of food waste in Australia occurs in primary production and 24 per cent in manufacturing. The Australian food chain has been described as “uniformly bad” and the worst in the OECD.
The Upcycling Initiative (TUI) Foods is an example of what major change can look like. Driven by the three directors – Peter Taitoko from RMR Process, seasoned FMCG expert Tony Cartwright, and fifth generation farmer Mike Nagorcka of Waltanna Farms – TUI’s goal is to capture the lost value of food waste at the very beginning of the production cycle and “fix a critical problem in a broken food supply chain in Australia”.
The trio bring their own specialisations to the business; Taitoko’s global food manufacturing process and facility design reputation, Cartwright’s FMCG and global brand building experience including his time as Unilever’s global wholesale director for T2 Tea, and Nagorcka’s background as an engineer as well as an impressive track record of developing and implementing innovative farming methods.
Cartwright, CEO of TUI, tells Food & Drink Business that as much as 30 per cent of farmers’ crops will not make it to market because of appearance or slight colour variance.
OF A FARMERS’ CROP WILL NOT MAKE IT TO MARKET BECAUSE OF ITS SIZE OR COLOUR.
“That’s thirty per cent of revenue and good nutrition, gone, just like that,” Cartwrights says.
At the same time, Australian brands are importing processed ingredients to manufacture ‘Australian-made’ food products.
“So, not only do we waste perfectly good Australian produce, we also deny Australian farmers a valuable source of revenue by buying imported ingredients,” he says.
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DANIELLE THOMAS