Futures Market

Australian Good Taste - October 2004

Remember when everyone said we’d be popping a meal pill for our daily nutrition in the 21st century? Here we are a few years into the new millennium and, guess what? They forgot how much we love our food. One hundred issues since the first Australian Good Taste in 1996, food is still very much in vogue. It’s still about convenience, but more than ever it’s about health and well-being. Natalie Hedrick, a research analyst at the Australian Centre for Retail Studies, says shoppers want convenience but they also want freshness. Balancing these two desires will be the challenge in the future. Join us on a journey to 2013 when agt celebrates its next 100 issues.

Sci-fi Supermarkets

Self-checkout systems and smart trolleys will revolutionise Australian supermarkets. It’ll be goodbye to lengthy queues as shoppers scan and pay for their groceries using touch-screen menus. Your smart trolley will have recommended a wine to go with your meal, and reminded you that you need toilet paper. Hedrick agrees with the predictions of US industry expert Dan Hopping that there’ll be more changes in the way people shop in the next five years than there have been in the past 20. Self-checkouts have already been introduced in several Australian stores and while they will never eliminate manned checkouts, there’s no doubt we’ll be seeing more of them.

Techno Packaging

Say goodbye to the barcode and hello to EPC and RFID. The electronic product code (EPC) is a tiny chip that uses radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to send signals to a reading device. Every chip has a unique serial number so individual items can be tracked right through the supply chain. The chips are inserted into products and as you leave the store, they activate a device that totals how much you owe. Sound far-fetched? Well it’s already being used in Germany and Hedrick is confident it will be adopted here too, although privacy issues and other concerns mean it might be some time away yet. The Packaging Council of Australia says microchips are just one of the trends that will emerge over the next decade. There will be more “intelligent packaging’’ of foods with time/temperature indicators, while environmental issues and product security will increasingly need to be addressed.

Convenience Is King

Australians can choose from up to 30,000 food and drink products on supermarket shelves, almost double that of a decade or two ago, according to the Australian Food and Grocery Council. Those figures are set to rise as shoppers opt for more convenience foods including ready-prepared meals, pre-cut fresh foods and food portioned into small and single serves. “The average household these days is a lot smaller and consumers are looking at easier preparation with minimal waste,” says Michael Simonetta, chief executive of Perfection Fresh, which has introduced innovative produce like baby capsicums and mini cabbages. It is now working on a seedless “personal melon”, small enough for one person to eat in a single sitting. We’ll see a lot more of what the CSIRO calls “preserved fresh” convenience foods. Its Flagship team is developing high-pressure processing technology that will inactivate spoilage microbes without damaging the food, so that it looks, feels and tastes fresh but has a much longer shelf-life. “Essentially, it means you can have restaurant-quality ready-meals that have the stability of canned or frozen food,” says Food Science Australia’s Dr Cindy Stewart.

Short-order Shopping

The big weekly shop will become a thing of the past, with people shopping more often, for fewer items. “The typical shopping basket is less now in terms of dollars,” says Hedrick. “People are doing quick top-up shops because they want fresh food.” CSIRO Human Nutrition’s consumer science manager, Dr Katrine Baghurst, says people will be more likely to “graze” and eat several smaller meals a day. “Already our younger generation are thinking this way.”

Designer Foods

Get set for designer foods. Many cereals, dairy products, beverages, breads and spreads are already “functional” – ie. boosted with additional nutritional qualities - but in time to come, manufacturers may develop foods for specific health conditions. At a Nutrition in the New Millennium conference in 1998, Dr Baghurst predicted that once technology could genetically map diseases people might be prone to, personal health profiles and dietary plans could be developed. “At the moment nutritionists can only provide the population with general guidelines about what is healthy. In future years, when we have a better idea of our personal susceptibility to a condition, we may be able to choose from a line of foods developed by manufacturers which are suitable for those with certain conditions.” The CSIRO Flagship scientists are developing wheat varieties that protect against cancer and canola that protects against heart disease. They are also designing a process to extract valuable compounds from meat and milk for use in a variety of health foods. “The world market for (functional foods) is booming,” says CSIRO’s Dr Geoffrey Smithers. “People want one-stop, guilt-free indulgence.”

Nose For A Good Wine

Who would ever have imagined that wine would come in cans? A Queensland company did and is now exporting the product. Other winemakers are following suit. Expect to see it adopted by the world’s airlines - for those travelling down the back of the plane at least. If this brings tears to the eyes of wine purists, they’ll be more accepting of the other revolution in wine packaging. Many high-profile labels are now moving from cork to screwcap closures. By 2013 we might even see Grange under screwcap. And in an exciting project being undertaken by CSIRO’s Flagship team, scientists are developing a “bio-nose” capable of detecting in minute amounts the natural substances which contribute to, or detract from, the odour and flavour of wine. Vine breeders will use it to increase grape quality, and winemakers will be able to get the flavour mix just right. The bio-nose could apply to foods as well, acting as a sniffer during transit so that products arrive at their destination in perfect condition, and detecting those that are going off.

More Fish In The Sea

Seafood lovers will be able to throw a pedigree prawn on the barbie thanks to a project by CSIRO scientists that will give Australians the best-bred prawns in the world. Working with two Queensland prawn farms, they are using DNA technology to select prawns that grow the fastest. “(This) will enable farmers to produce their own elite broodstock - much like the poultry, cattle or racehorse industries,” says CSIRO’s Dr Sigrid Lehnert. CSIRO plans to introduce seven new fish varieties by 2010, including new varieties of prawn, abalone and salmon.

Dr Jekyll Cuisine

All chefs know that cooking is as much a science as it is an art but some are taking it to extremes. Spain’s Ferran Adria and Britain’s Heston Blumenthal are challenging people’s perceptions of food by presenting it in entirely new forms. Adria uses foams and jellies to produce his whimsical creations, while Blumenthal challenges diners with adventurous flavour combinations such as bacon and egg icecream. Adria even closes his restaurant, El Bulli, for six months each year to experiment in his Barcelona “laboratory”. George Colombaris, chef at Melbourne’s Reserve restaurant, has picked up on the foams and jellies trend and is impressing diners with dishes such as tuna with banana ice cream and banana foam. With chefs increasingly treating food as a science experiment, expect to see more of this “molecular gastronomy”.

Smart, Friendly Kitchens

Home kitchens will have a mix of environmentally-conscious and high-tech features, according to the editor of Interiors magazine, Janet James. “Rainwater tanks are going to be the norm. We’ll have greywater from dishwashers going out on to the garden. Recycling sections in the kitchen will be the norm. “Seamless high-tech surfaces will be made from environmentally sustainable products. We’ll see more smart products like silicon cookware. It’ll all be about ease of use and ease of cleaning. “We’ll continue to be much more savvy about food preparation and cooking, and will bring in more industrial products, like induction cooking and the steamers and big grills that chefs use. “Kitchens will have filtered water on tap. Everything will make us smarter but it will be more environmentally friendly.”

Masstige Food

If you can get your tongue around the word, you might gather it comes from “mass” and “prestige”. As the Harvard Business Review reported in April 2003, “These goods occupy a spot between mass and class. While commanding a premium over conventional products, they are priced well below super-premium or old-luxury goods.” Masstige brands appeal particularly to urban consumers who strive to be trendy but aren’t above a bargain. By 2013, we’ll be seeing a lot more mass-produced prestige products like coffee and olive oil.

Food For Thought

Many of these consumers will also be buying organic. Global organic production is expanding at the rate of 10 to 15 per cent a year, making it the fastest-growing food sector. Consumers cite taste, health and environmental reasons for wanting organic, and pay higher prices for the privilege. Increased demand and the consequent higher volumes should see prices come down.

Bush Tucker Dreaming

Think of the bush as a vast untapped supermarket. Nearly all the food sold in Australia comes from an introduced plant or animal, yet much of it could be replaced from an indigenous source. While “bush foods” are becoming more widely available in supermarkets and restaurants, they are still a novelty. We’ve succeeded in commercially producing the macadamia nut but little more. Chris Harwood, a researcher with the CSIRO’s Australian Tree Seed centre, says Australians have a moral obligation to learn more about the country’s natural bounty. There are other good reasons why we should be eating more native foods by 2013. The Nutrition Council of Australia says there is growing evidence that some have a protective effect against cancer and heart disease. The industry could add a new, sustainable economic dimension to remote Aboriginal communities, and these hardy robust crops could be just what is needed in a world of declining land and water resources.

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Fast forward to the year 2050. What will our food be like then?

Art Siemering, editor-in-chief of the Internet Food Channel (www.foodchannel.com), has some thought-provoking suggestions: