What’s the next big thing to hit our plates? Where is the next superfood coming from? How do we grow the next dragonfruit, create the new acai bowl or brew the successor to the turmeric latte?

Sadly, it’s still impossible to see into the future – but a panel at Hort Connections 2018 will explore the trends that are shaping consumer habits now to help delegates prepare for what comes next.

Moderated by teacher, author and former MasterChef contestant Alice Zaslavsky, the panel Future Food Trends: What’s the next kale boom is bringing together industry experts and leading market researchers, including:

• Chanel Day (Nielsen Australia)
• Denise Hamblin (Colmar Brunton)
• Heather Smyth (QAAFI)
• Dr Mary Ann Augustin (CSIRO)

This speaker line-up will offer informed and educated insights into the future of Australian food, building on combined decades of experience in the sector.

It’s a must-see session for vegetable growers in particular, with these panel members being responsible for some of the most valuable market insights produced for our industry in recent years. Nielsen Australia delivers the levy-funded Harvest to Home consumer insights program for a cluster of vegetable lines, while Colmar Brunton produced the levy-funded Project Harvest consumer reports for the vegetable industry for many years and has researched the market potential for native Australian produce and Asian vegetable varieties.

On the practical side, Dr Augustin is part of the project team investigating loss and food waste in our sector, which – among other work – has investigated the use of extrusion technology to create vegetable snacks.

On top of this, Alice is personally helping to shape the future of Australian vegetable consumption by producing the Phenomenom series for Hort Innovation. Learn more about Alice in her own words here!

This session, which is being coordinated by Hort Innovation, will kick off one stream of the concurrent speaker sessions at Hort Connections, and will get started at 8:00am on Wednesday 20 June 2018.

You can see the full Hort Connections 2018 program online. If you haven’t yet signed up to attend, register now!

This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 29 May 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!