Local teenager wins aquaculture scholarship

Brook Lines is the inaugural winner of the Queen Charlotte College (QCC) Aquaculture Academy New Zealand King Salmon Scholarship.

The scholarship is worth $11,500 over two years and funds Brook’s tuition and course fees to complete a diploma in Aquaculture at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology.

A year 12 student who was considering leaving school for work, Brook (16) is now able to further his aquaculture studies, an area in which he has shown both enthusiasm and talent.

Queen Charlotte College assistant principal Betty Whyte says the college was looking for a scholarship recipient who would be best served by the support from New Zealand King Salmon.

“Brook was thinking about going to work but with this scholarship he has an amazing opportunity to continue his aquaculture education. And that is the best thing for him at this stage in his life.

“He has a good academic record with NCEA Level 2 and is very familiar with the industry. That was important to us because we wanted to ensure the scholarship recipient knew what he was in for and had a commitment to the subject,” Ms Whyte says.

“Brook has had work experience out on the mussel boats and he is a very outdoors sort of a person, keen on hunting and fishing – he lives at Anakiwa on Queen Charlotte Sound.

“He had also previously won a scholarship to South Australia where he spent two weeks visiting tuna, mussel, kingfish and oyster farms which confirmed his aquaculture ambitions.

“Everyone at QCC is very pleased for Brook and we all believe he has excellent aquaculture management potential.”

New Zealand King Salmon CEO Grant Rosewarne says the company is delighted Brook is the inaugural scholarship recipient.

“We are very much part of the community in Marlborough. We are always keen to encourage young people from the region to consider aquaculture as a career and that was our motivation behind setting up the scholarship.

“Brook is a worthy recipient and has demonstrated tremendous commitment to learning about aquaculture and making it his life’s work.

“We and QCC have a shared objective in nurturing up and coming talent and we believe this scholarship enhances Brook’s employment opportunities. We are looking forward to closely following his progress welcoming him to the industry on his graduation,” Mr Rosewarne says.

The New Zealand King Salmon Scholarship is awarded to a year 12 or 13 Aquaculture Academy student at QCC selected by college staff and approved by principal Tom Parsons.

The recipient must be a student who has shown enthusiasm and diligence during the school year as well as attitude and commitment to a career in aquaculture or marine science.

For more information:
Betty Whyte
Queen Charlotte College
Tel: 03 573 6558
Email: bwhyte [at] qcc [dot] school [dot] nz

Grant Rosewarne
NZ King Salmon
Tel: 03 546 4860
Email: Grant [dot] Rosewarne [at] kingsalmon [dot] co [dot] nz

Skilled training graduates deserve recognition

Completing a high-level qualification while working fulltime requires a lot of dedication, yet every year several thousand employees in industry achieve highly with little public fanfare. Companies supporting their employees through on-job training, such as apprenticeships, are equally dedicated, investing in lifting transferable skill levels throughout New Zealand industry.

To recognise the efforts of learners and employers, industry training organisation Competenz has published and distributed a Roll of Honour handbook.

It celebrates all graduates who completed Level 4 or higher qualifications in mechanical engineering, refrigeration, heating, ventilation and air conditioning and fire protection that Competenz oversees.

A total of 846 graduates from 536 companies nationwide feature in the Roll of Honour. Of these, 733 are graduates from the wider engineering manufacturing sector who completed their national certificates in a three to four-year long apprenticeship, and are now fully-qualified in their trade.

“All of our graduates can be very proud of their achievements, knowing their skills will stand them in great stead for their career development,” says
Competenz acting chief executive, Fiona Kingsford.

“Achieving a high-level, industrybased qualification requires just as much focus as anything you’d study at university or polytechnic, with the added challenge of juggling work priorities.”

It’s a small way of recognising the time and effort learners in the food and beverage manufacturing sector put into completing their training, and the role of employers providing employees support throughout their on-job and off-job learning.

“Companies also deserve to be recognised for their commitment to invest in training - a more highly skilled workforce with transferable skills benefits both the company and our country’s economic future.”

It’s a positive step toward meeting the skill gaps companies identified in research Competenz conducted last year on this issue. But according to the research, a further 3,800 skilled manufacturing workers will be needed by companies within the wider manufacturing sector by 2013.

“The only sustainable way for companies to gain the skilled staff they need is to upskill even more of their current employees, or take on new staff to train to your requirements,” says Mrs Kingsford.

“Competenz offers food and beverage manufacturing companies expertise in planning and training support to help meet their upskilling needs and business objectives,” she says.

Jackie Herbert of Vitaco Heath Ltd is one of the graduates profiled. A degreequalified food scientist, Jackie was able to quickly apply learnings from her business first line management training to her every day work.

“For me the motivation came from wanting to be a better manager,” says Jackie.

“I had the technical background but needed to upskill in the area of management.”

Jackie’s sentiments are echoed by many training industry graduates with HR responsibilities.

“Graduates’ stories show that training positively impacts the lives and career prospects of people at all levels of work experience, and it’s never too late to get qualified in your field,” says Mrs Kingsford.

Innovate, investigate or kiss your business bye bye

By Les Watkins

Food producers who fail to invest time and money in research and development, who ignore customers’ wishes for new taste sensations, risk becoming history within 10 years.

That warning comes from Peter Reidie the recently-appointed New Zealand managing director of Goodman Fielder – our biggest food and beverage company with annual sales topping $1 billion.

That is why Mr Reidie is dedicated to growing Goodman Fielder nationally as well as internationally and talks enthusiastically about pouring millions into research.
“You have to innovate to survive,” he says.
“Tastes and attitudes are changing and food manufacturers need to adapt. Those who do so successfully will win and those who don’t won’t be with us in 10 years’ time.”

Mr Reidie was Goodman Fielder’s dairy and meats chief until being promoted to the helm when the company’s three semi-autonomous New Zealand
divisions were merged in October. As a dedicated rugby fan from Southland, he takes pride in describing his Goodman Fielder team as “the All
Blacks of the food industry”.

It is a 3000-strong team in 18 plants throughout the country. He also uses a rugby reference when stressing the value of research and development.
“No-one wants to watch a previous All Black test over and over again. Yes, they’ve enjoyed it but they also want to see a new and exciting one. Well, it’s the same with food consumer needs.”

Mr Reidie says that this year will be as tough and “character building” as 2011 which, financially, was hardly joyful for Goodman Fielder. But he is facing 2012 with levelheaded confidence, largely bolstered by the successes of his R&D team.

Their research, he feels, has given the company a deeper understanding of consumer preferences than that of most of its competitors.
“And, obviously, if you know what makes the punters tick – know what appeals to them in terms of trends and tastes – you can place yourself well to meet their needs,” he says.

However, the comparative smallness of the domestic market makes the investment required for in-depth R&D a major issue. One of the ways to meet that challenge is to ensure that R&D also boosts exports – a challenge Peter Reidie is looking forward to with relish.
“Yes, the opportunities for growth are certainly there,” he says.
“We have to keep looking for how to change the game, offering different choices to our customers here and overseas and play to win. And that is exciting.”

Now the company has one expanded R&D department, in place of the three operating before the merger, and R&D director Paul Harris considers this is far more effective.
“You get the knowledge being shared right across the group,” he says.
“Our food technologists who are specialists in their own fields – in baking, dairy, meat and home ingredients – are in a better position to cross-pollinate ideas.”

Measurable evidence of the benefits of R&D investment is seen in the soaring success of the first gluten-free Vogel bread introduced by Goodman Fielder in July.
“Part of the rationale for the launch was the increasing demand for glutenfree products with more people being diagnosed as coeliacs,” says Mr Harris.
Coeliac disease is an auto-immune disorder of the small intestine which is exacerbated by gluten.
“We spent 18 months working on this bread before it was launched,” says Mr Harris.
“One of the key things that came out of our research was that gluten-free consumers have a strong desire to be seen as normal like everyone else. They dislike being considered different.
“There was also a lack of good-tasting gluten-free bread on the market. Most of it was dry and crumbly and people were saying they’d rather go without.
“So we knew we had to create a loaf that was soft and moist and that would stay fresh. And it needed to be right for sandwiches.”

Success was confirmed by a blind test involving Colmar Brunton with 84 percent of participants preferring the Vogel bread to its competitors. But a problem was struck when the trial was up-scaled from the test bakery to the production plant – the bread was so soft and moist that it gummed up the blades.
“We solved that by putting a foodgrade lubricant on the blades,” says Mr Harris.
“That stopped the bread sticking to them.”

The new loaf increased sales of gluten-free bread by 40 percent within 12 weeks of being launched. By then it had also secured 50 percent of total market share.
“And consumer feedback has been brilliant,” says Mr Harris.
“For example, we’re getting letters from children thanking Vogel for enabling them to take sandwiches to school just like their classmates.
“That hadn’t been possible before and they’d really disliked standing out as different. So that’s an example, you might say, of how we’re changing lives in a positive way – something that makes us absolutely proud.”

Another example of how R&D influences eating patterns is provided by the Puhoi Valley speciality mini cheeses which the company launched in August. Their introduction was inspired by the realisation that – mainly because of size and price – customers were tending to buy speciality cheeses only when entertaining.
“They weren’t wanting to put a halfeaten piece back in the fridge because it would dry out,” says Mr Harris.
“So we came out with the mini versions, predominantly about the 140 gram mark instead of about 300 gram, which would be the perfect size for a couple.
They could be enjoyed without wastage, for instance, as a mid-week treat by mum and dad.

A few facts on the Food Bill to encourage informed debate

Faced with tough economic times, the cost of food has been getting a lot of air time in the media. Most recently, discussion in social media on this topic has focused on what consequences the proposed Food Bill – currently before Parliament – would have for people who grow food for personal, family and community consumption.
Unfortunately, the discussion has centred on a few misunderstandings about what the Food Bill proposes.
I welcome robust discussions about our regulatory system. However, to have a meaningful dialogue it’s important that all the facts are laid out so people can get the full picture.
And that’s why I’m taking this opportunity to clear up some of these misunderstandings.
The Food Bill was developed in response to a three-year-long Domestic Food Review, which looked at our domestic food legislation. The review revealed that the existing legislation is out-of-date, inconsistent and in some cases imposes unnecessary compliance costs.
The purpose of the Food Bill is to ensure that the food people buy is safe and suitable by requiring those selling food to operate in a way that minimises risks to the consumer.
This ushers in a new era where regulation moves from an inspection-based system to a risk-based approach.
In practice this means that rather than relying on government inspectors to find any problems, responsibility is moved to the person in charge of a food operation to be proactive in the way they manage food safety and suitability.
However, while the Food Bill proposes a new way of managing food safety in a commercial setting, I want to emphasise that it would not affect people’s right to grow food and to then exchange or trade it within their community with a view to self-sufficiency.
It is an age old Kiwi tradition for people to grow food for themselves and to swap their excess with friends or neighbours. The new legislation will not prevent this tradition from continuing.
With that being said, the Food Bill does apply to food that is sold or traded, and this includes food that is bartered or supplied in exchange for payment – just as it is the case with the current Food Act 1981, which also includes barter in the definition of sale.

This definition has not prevented bartering from freely taking place between individual members of the community, who are not in business.
We intentionally included bartering under the new Food Bill because it could otherwise leave the door open for large scale or commercial food operations to try and avoid meeting their regulatory responsibilities by setting up a bartering system to replace other forms of trading.
There are in fact a number of bartering schemes in New Zealand that have members who trade in food, such as Bartercard which has 7,000 members.
However, a person who grows food and then barters or trades this food to an end consumer will not be subject to a set of onerous requirements; they will simply need to operate under food handler guidance, which is a set of educative food safety tips that will be available from MAF free of charge and territorial authorities.
It is in everyone’s interest to have a regulatory system that allows for the provision of food that is safe and suitable.I am confident that the Food Bill gives us exactly such a system, without interfering with the time-honoured tradition where people share their abundance of food with others.

Carol Barnao is a member of the Foodtechnology Advisory Panel and deputy director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Standards branch.
Before this, she was NZFSA director of the Assurances and Standards Group which provides assurances that New Zealand food and related products are safe and suitable to eat. Carol has a strong background in the dairy industry. Before joining MAF 12 years ago, she was for 18 years involved in the dairy industry. She has held various positions with the New Zealand Dairy Board. She is a food technologist and a fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology.

If you have questions for Ms Barnao or suggestions on areas of interest in her specialist area, e-mail editor Mike Bishara at mike [at] hayleymedia [dot] com, reference Carol Barnao.

KiwiNet forum focuses on role of digital technology in agricultural sector innovation and profitability

The Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) hosted a forum in Christchurch on Wednesday 21 September to gain insights into how digital technology can improve farm, orchard and vineyard sustainable profitability and grow high tech manufacturing. The industry forsighting initiative brought together farmers, viticulturists, orchardists, hi-tech companies, researchers, and government organisations across the agricultural value chain. The intended outcome was to identify and overcome any barriers to commercial success in digital agriculture and ensure that we turn technological leadership into an innovative and world leading agri-tech sector.

David Hughes, Group General Manager Commercial, Plant & Food Research says, "By improving collaboration we can unlock significant economic value both in the primary industry, and high-tech manufacturing and ICT sectors. For New Zealand to lead the world in this area we need to ensure that the whole value chain is aligned."

Peter Barrowclough, Chief Executive Officer at Lincoln Ventures Ltd who were participants at the event says, "We understand that primary agriculture provides a good deal of NZ's wealth, but increasingly some people are asking, but at what environmental cost? Precision Agriculture offers the opportunity to 'grow more with less'. It enables us to increase or maintain production, while reducing our environmental footprint. For it to be taken up by farmers, they are going to have to see the benefits in economic terms, i.e more profit. The aim of Lincoln Ventures Ltd's research and our collaboration with Massey University is to develop new Precision Agriculture Technologies that will deliver all three benefits. Increased production, increased profit and reduced environmental impact from our farming systems. The other potential spin off from this research that we would like to see emerge is the growth of smart NZ developed Precision Agriculture technologies that NZ Agritech manufacturing companies can export to the world."

Dr Peter John, Director of Research & Commercialisation at Lincoln University says, "The workshop further enhanced our understanding of the needs of end-users - from dairy and dry stock farmers through to orchardists and wine growers. The insights gained will be used to inform and direct collaborative programmes capable of delivering on those needs".

The AIC (Australian Institute for Commercialisation) facilitated the forum with their TechClinic® approach which uses a structured environment to focus the entire innovation value chain on a specific opportunity, area or need.

Nigel Johnson, Director of Research & Innovation at the University of Canterbury says, "The value of the New Zealand agricultural sector is well known, and digital agriculture offers the scope to take sustainable productivity to the next level. New Zealand also has significant R &D and entrepreneurial strengths in the enabling fields of ICT (including wireless technologies and geospatial information gathering and analysis), sensing, mechatronics, and so on.

KiwiNet brings together the collective resources of universities and CRIs with these capabilities, as well as specialist agricultural and environmental researchers. By engaging with the ultimate users of digital agriculture (the farmers) and the commercial firms and agencies that can put ideas into the market, KiwiNet is giving the New Zealand agricultural economy the best chance of developing, adopting and benefiting from these new technologies. The Digital Agriculture forum helped develop a collective understanding of both needs and opportunities, and the will to work together."

KiwiNet was launched in July to increase the scale and impact of commercialisation in New Zealand by facilitating a more collaborative and capable commercialisation system. KiwiNet acts as a hub for commercialisation for its member organisations as well as the wider innovation system.

Ruth Richardson, Chairman of KiwiNet says, "This is a great demonstration of how KiwiNet can use its collective might in a very practical way to boost commercialisation activity and innovation in one our most important sectors. Universities and Crown Research Institutes can really lead the charge to create some positive economic shifts by being practical and proactive like this."

Bram Smith, Technology Development Manager at WaikatoLink says, "The Digital Agriculture event is just one example of KiwiNet acting to bring together research organisations and business to develop technologies that drive economic growth. Collaboration is critical and the event demonstrated the benefits of bringing together people from all along the value chain including scientists, industry, farmers and government. We see time and again that the most innovative solutions result from bringing together a multidisciplinary team of experts from disparate fields to focus on a specific sector. The key is to identify ideas with strong commercial potential and then move quickly to focus resources on accelerating these ideas to the market."

KiwiNet was originally founded by a collaboration of nine universities and crown research institutes including WaikatoLink, Plant & Food Research, Otago Innovation, Lincoln University, AUT Enterprises, AgResearch, Industrial Research, VicLink and the University of Canterbury. The founding organisations alone encompass a large proportion of NZ's science capability, with a total combined research expenditure of more than $500 million.

KiwiNet's collaborative commercialisation model enables members to share resources, networks, best practise, IP and experience to create more commercially viable IP and start-ups from research based ventures. Industry forsighting initiatives and other commercialisation events will be held regularly to maximise collaborative opportunities and knowledge sharing.

Organic retraction

By Ian MacIntyre

Fonterra has recently initiated a four-point plan with its organic farmers in order to bring this loss-making business sector into a break-even situation.
While apparently remaining “committed” to the organic market, Fonterra is now:
1. concentrating North Island organic suppliers in one hub around its key certified organic processing site, Hautapu, which will also reduce overall supplier numbers reducing the amount of product processed at its other two certified organic sites, Waitoa and Morrinsville
2. prioritising the organic product range to focus on cheese which provides the best returns
3. focusing on emerging Asian and Australasian organics markets where there are stronger returns and growth potential
Fonterra supplier and external relations group director Kelvin Wickham says the organics market has been particularly hit hard by the global financial crisis and market indications are it will not recover to previous levels.
“All categories felt the effects but particularly the category in which we sell - packaged dairy foods - where prices and volumes are still below 2008 levels,” he says.
“Research shows people are now less willing to pay the premium for organic products. In addition, consumers are gaining more confidence that everyday products are being produced more sustainably and are more acceptable so they no longer see the need to pay the premium for most organic products.”

Easy to use – thank you Mr Jobs

By Gary Hartley

Steve Jobs’ recent passing was a great loss, and not just to Apple devotees. Jobs did the rest of us a huge service as well by pushing a fundamental principle to the forefront of the digital age – technology should be as simple and easy to use as possible.
The Apple co-founder and chief executive seems to have been crystal clear on this as an imperative for designers of digital technology since he and Steve Wozniack launched the first Apple personal computer in 1976.
In the tech-speak of software developers, it is about all about “improving the user interface” – between people and machines.
Jobs put it this way in a 1997 speech:
“You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.”
The approach seems to have worked for Apple and over the past decade, Jobs and co have certainly raised the bar on user interfacing with MP3 players, tablet computers and smartphones.
So what about other technologies for computing and communicating? What does the Jobs creed mean for something like radio frequency identification (RFID).
“Come on,” I hear someone yell (perhaps an Apple fanatic),”RFID tags and readers could never be as sexy as my ipod or iphone.”
Maybe not, but the central point is that all technologies can – and if we apply the Jobs principle, should be – designed with the end user top of mind. RFID systems, like any technology, can be made simpler and easier to use, and thereby have much greater value to their users.
It is true that the usability of RFID tags, readers and databases has improved greatly over the past five years. Previously vendors offered pieces of hardware and software, and then largely left their customers to go figure out how to create a system.
Progress has been made, but reader interfaces are often still clunky and RFID has a long way to go before it works in just the way everyone would expect.
Among Steve Jobs’ other big ideas was an insistence that technology designers have to actually anticipate what users will want.
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new,” Jobs once said.
That certainly applies to RFID with its vast potential for expanding efficiency, transparency and choice in supply chains.
Most future users would struggle to know exactly what they want from this technology until it is developed and presented to them. And the easier it is made to use, the quicker they will “get it”.
Of course, technologies are developed – and become increasingly understood and easier to use – one in relation to another. With RFID it is probably the Internet that will really make the difference because together, they enable objects (consumer items, assets, buildings or whatever) to be identified and monitored between locations regardless of the distance between them.
RFID tags and sensors initiate communication about things for any number of purposes and the Internet extends that potential vastly. A simple example would be a food exporting company monitoring the condition and location of temperature-sensitive products en route to market using RFID-enabled sensors, the Internet and satellite communications: Monitoring can be near real time.
Interesting to see Gartner, the technology forecasters, recently list the “Internet of things” among the top 10 strategic technologies for 2012.
We have known the concept for years now but Gartner says inter-related technologies – including embedded sensors and the near field communication (NFC) form of RFID – have developed to the point where the “Internet of things” is about to have a major impact on businesses worldwide.
Actually, it is only a matter of time before the impact reaches consumers as well. For example NFC can be added to smartphones so that “things” can communicate with us at our instant command.
The NFC-enabled phone could be waved at the NFC tag on an object of interest with the phone then performing some useful function like taking you to a specific Web site.
That sort of thing could make RFID very sexy.
We do not know what Steve Jobs’ advice on RFID would be, but I’m pretty sure it be along the lines of, “make it simple and easy to use – and hurry up”.

If you have questions for Mr Hartley or suggestions on areas of interest in his specialist area, e-mail editor Mike Bishara at mike [at] hayleymedia [dot] com, reference Gary Hartley.