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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 9 | NOV 06 | |
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ARTICLE
FOOD INDUSTRY:
Efficiency Drive By David Adams
Researchers are looking at ways to smooth the bumps in the road to market for Australia's agrifoods sectorThere was a time when the local produce market was in the town square; a straight cart run from farm to the centre of town. Today a lot of farm produce has to be freighted hundreds of kilometres and involves a vast transport, packaging and storage infrastructure. The paddock-to-plate logistics in this infrastructure are complex, costly and said to be eroding the value of Australia's $110-billion food industry by as much as 35 per cent.
Now, for the first time, a research team from CSIRO is taking a comprehensive look at Australian food industry logistics to gain a clearer understanding of costs and efficiencies, and to develop innovative solutions to keep the industry globally competitive. It is an opportune time to analyse logistics because rising energy costs will require highly efficient and streamlined processes. Dr Andrew Higgins, Food Futures Flagship project leader, says the research will be looking at factors that affect logistics costs and whether alternative models would lower them. "It's trying to get a better understanding [of food logistics] to give the Australian Government and also researchers a clearer idea of the key opportunities that need to be addressed in the future [as well as] the inefficiencies," he says. "We'll also be looking to identify some key challenges in achieving more efficient logistics, whether they be social challenges, infrastructure challenges or even political challenges." The Australian Food and Grocery Council's deputy chief executive, Dr David Roberts, says logistics costs need to be minimised for all parties, from producer to consumer. Dr Roberts, who is also a Flagship Advisory Committee member, says: "Competitiveness is affected when goods are moved inefficiently or ineffectively. Understanding the state of logistics in the Australian food industry is a first step to identifying opportunities to increase efficiency." The $200,000 'State of Logistics' project started in June and is expected to run until February. It is the first project under the direction of the Food Futures Flagship following the theme of improving and integrating the food product value chain. Dr David Tanner, who is overseeing projects coming under the value chain theme, says the flagship program's overarching goal is to improve the international competitiveness of Australia's agrifood industry. He says one way this can be done is by improving the value chain with innovative technologies and encouraging more integration between stakeholders. Dr Tanner describes the State of Logistics project as a 'scene setting' study. "It's really providing a conceptual framework," he says. "And from that we will invest in an impact analysis study…all of which improves our understanding of where we can get the best bang for our buck." The State of Logistics project, which involves researchers and expert input from three CSIRO divisions, including Sustainable Ecosystems, Mathematical and Information Sciences and Food Science Australia, a joint venture of CSIRO and the Victorian Government, will look at logistics in agriculture and horticulture and will centre on a series of four case studies. "It makes it more tangible," says Dr Higgins, explaining the reasoning behind the use of case studies. "It's very hard to dive in and look at all industries and all logistics. It's too broad and complex."
The case studies will focus on Australia's mango, wine, field crops – including grains and sugar – and meat industries. Dr Higgins says these four industry areas were chosen because they represent a mixture of 'today and tomorrow industries'. While some industries, like sugar and grains, are established, others like mangoes and wine are still growing. They also provide a wide representation of the types of logistics that take place in Australia's food industries. Information for the study is being obtained through CSIRO's industry partners as well as past research. The latter includes results from a recent comprehensive logistics study conducted in South Africa. Dr Higgins says the final report will look at cost structures behind the logistics, as well as consider the impacts on logistics from different food value chain drivers, such as business practices and storage infrastructure and practices. He says that the big surprise of the research so far has been the complicated nature of the food logistics industry in Australia. "You can understand why this hasn't been done before," he says. "It's a very complicated area because it's so broad and there are different ways to look at the costs of logistics." Dr Higgins says the initial study will be the first step in an ongoing study of food logistics. "The first study is to better understand the costs of food logistics in Australia and identify some priority areas for government and funding bodies to provide further research investment. So we see it as the first step to much bigger analysis and much bigger investment to achieve change to logistics and practice." For further information contact: |
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