2019MEMBERSHIP UPDATEJANUARY - OCTOBER

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

Welcome to the 2019 AIFST Membership Update

As the end of 2019 is nearing it is important to look back over the year.

This year has been busy - the focus of the Board has been to consolidate and

build financial stability for the Institute, to reengage with members and to grow

our membership base.

This update provides an overview of the activities of the Institute for 2019 and

what is in store for 2020.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

2019 Snapshot (Jan – Oct)

1053

Event & Webinar attendees

12

Webinars

13

Face-to-face events around Australia

80+

Hours of education & networking

73

National Mentoring Program participants

4

Quarterly editions of food australia

10

Bitesize e-newsletter

Continuing Professional Development program launched

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

Membership Services

National Mentoring Program

2019 saw the growth of the National Mentoring program,

which increased from 52 mentors and mentees in 2018 to 73

mentors and mentees in 2019. Participants were based in

Qld, NSW, VIC, SA and WA and were at all different stages of

their careers.

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive

with many wishing to partake again in 2020. The Mentoring

Program will be back again in 2020, so keep an eye out for

emails later in the year.

Special Interest Groups & Branches

In 2019 AIFST has been working towards restructuring our Communities of Interest model and re-launching it

as State Branches and Special Interest Groups. We are currently in the midst of re-forming the Young

Professionals Special Interest Group, which will look at ways in which we can achieve higher rates of student

engagement.

The state branches have been working to produce several successful events throughout the year including the

QLD Science at the Speed of Light event (bottom left), WA Food Waste event (bottom right), VIC Trivia Night,

and the WA Food for Thought Workshop.

Member & Industry Events

AIFST consistently works hard to bring a range of

opportunities for members to grow, learn and connect.

During 2019 a total of 25 events were hosted by AIFST – 13

face-to-face and 12 webinars with a total of 1,053

participants. This is the largest number of event participants

in many years and there are still more events to go! There are

still events planned for the remainder of the year which

include webinars, face to face events and Christmas parties.

Consultants Register

The AIFST Consultants Register was launched

in September 2017 as a service to members.

Currently there are 33 consultants listed on

the register, operating nationally or state-

wide. Should you wish to be listed, please fill

out and return the form on the website here.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

FEB 2019 AIFST Summer Schools – University of Queensland & University of Adelaide

This year - for the first time ever - AIFST concurrently organised two separate Summer School events. The first Summer

School of the year was held at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia Campus in mid-February. This event hosted 90

students and a diverse range of speakers over the two days. The second Summer School was held at the University of

Adelaide, Waite Campus in late February. Over the two days, a total of 43 students and a multitude of great speakers

participated in the event. Both Summer Schools were great successes with programs featuring presentations from

industry professionals and fellow students, site tours, and networking opportunities.

AIFST is excited to be hosting the next Summer School at RMIT University in February 2020.

JULY 2019 AIFST Convention: Feeding the Future – Challenges and Opportunities

Key Events

The 2019 AIFST Convention was held over 1 & 2 July at the Sydney International Convention Centre (ICC). Over

the course of the convention we had 400+ attendees, 70+ speakers, 30 students volunteers and 15 exhibitors.

The feedback received from the Convention was majorly positive, with many commenting about the diverse

program, engaging speakers and thought-provoking content.

“Great technical content, great speakers. Too many good presentations and hard to choose between sessions”

“Loved the variety, very inspiring”

“Best conference in terms of content, location and speakers in quite a number of years!”

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

JULY 2019

AIFST Awards

The AIFST awards recognise the outstanding achievements of our members and the contribution they have made to

not only the Institute, but to the Australian food industry as a whole.

The AIFST congratulates all the award nominees and recipients and encourages all members to think about who you

could nominate when the AIFST Awards open again in 2020! The full list of awards and award recipients is available

on the AIFST website.

This year, AIFST welcomed 12 new Fellows:

• Jackie Baroni

• Martin Cole

• Dr Christopher Downs

• Stewart Eddie

• Fiona Fleming

• Dr Ian Jenson

• Deon Mahoney

• Craig Miller

• Allan Poynton

• Annesley Watson

• Dr Adel M Yousef

• Kirsten Zadow

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

AIFST Award recipients: Sarah Proctor (top left), Martin Cole (top right), Shaoyang Wang & Pridhuvi Thavaraj (bottom left), CauliPlus team – Shabrone Vertigan, Hannah Summerhayes, Ashna Gobin & Leonardo Bohorquez (bottom right)

OCT 2019

AIFST Continuing Professional Development Program Launch

This year AIFST has introduced and launched a Continuing Professional Development Program (CPD). This program is

a self-planned, structured program for developing professional skills. The program is designed with clear objectives;

requires your active participation; extends your professional knowledge and capabilities and allows you to engage in

a broad range of activities which will increase your career options.

The program reflects the professionalism of the members, improves their professional standing and enhances their employability by formalising and documenting CPD activities. The voluntary program is designed to encourage members to maintain the currency of skills and knowledge, will provide recognition of experience and interests and align food scientists with other well-respected professions. The CPD program is intended to provide recognition of these activities and skills by formalising and recording the process in a straightforward and transportable way. This program allows you to design your own CPD so that you can take charge of your career development. The competence of members is vital to the development and credibility of food science practitioners and a CPD program allows a formalised documentation of skills and reflects the professionalism of the members. More details can be found on the AIFST website.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

Social Media Channel Sept 2019 Sept 2018 Net change

Facebook

Page likes 5,202 4,823 + 7.29%

LinkedIn

Connections (profile) 5,189 4,108 + 20.83%

Followers (Company

page)

3,467 1,939 + 44.07%

Twitter

Followers 1,633 1,580 + 3.25%

Communications

food australia

In 2019, the responsibility for food australia

publication returned to Bite Communications. All

four editions for this year have received positive

feedback. We have worked closely with Bite on

content and the look of the journal – we hope you

have seen some positive changes so far. We have

re-established the Publications Committee and I

thank those members who have volunteered to

be involved. We also celebrated a milestone for

the journal with the 70th anniversary in August.

Bitesize

This year, AIFST newsletters have been sent out

each month to members. To date, 10 member-

only newsletters have been sent out. Over the

year we have included more content around

member activities which has received positive

feedback.

EDM’s (Electronic Direct Mail)

Over the course of 2019 AIFST has engaged members and the wider industry in key promotions through

electronic direct emails for the 2019 AIFST Convention and events. These emails consistently reached over

5500 key contacts and saw an average engagement of 40%. In 2020 AIFST will be looking to further connect

with the wider food industry through regular email updates and content on our website.

Social Media

In addition to monthly e-newsletters,

AIFST frequently engages with

members and the broader food

industry via Facebook, LinkedIn and

Twitter. We have seen tremendous

increase in engagement from 2018 to

2019 and we will be working towards

furthering this growth in 2020.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

During 2019 we have looked to continue our partnerships and engagements to support our reach and our place as

representing food industry professionals. This year we have continued to work with Foodbank Australia and the

Fight Food Waste CRC.

Partnership & Engagement

Foodbank Australia

The Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST) has joined

forces with Foodbank to help address the rising issue of food insecurity in

Australia at the same time as tackling food waste. Foodbank is the largest

hunger relief organisation in Australia which, with the help of the food

industry and public, has the scale and capacity to address the country’s

hunger crisis.

Foodbank will provide opportunities for AIFST members to assist with

projects and to volunteer their time in assisting with Foodbank operations.

As part of the partnership, the AIFST Foodbank Hunger Hero award was

launched at the 2018 AIFST Convention and has become part of the AIFST

awards program to recognise a person or team who have gone above and

beyond to tackle food insecurity. Whether it’s championing a new initiative

within their company or volunteering their time and expertise in the

community, AIFST and Foodbank want to recognise an individual’s or team’s

contribution and hold it up as an inspiration to others.

Fight Food Waste CRC

AIFST is a supporting partner of the Fight Food Waste CRC

giving the Institute the opportunity to participate in the

important work of this CRC.

IFT

The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) has continued

their shared commitment to supporting professionals in

the science of food. IFT came on board as a Gold Partner

for the 2019 AIFST Convention.

AIFST and IFT are continuing to work together to identify

meaningful ways to continue supporting the food science

professionals we represent as well as academic

institutions and the broader industry.

NZIFST

AIFST continued its ongoing relationship with NZIFST.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

AIFST has also been represented by Fiona Fleming in the following forums during 2019:

• Allergen Collaboration FSANZ established the Allergen Collaboration in late 2011 to strengthen engagement and collaboration among a range of stakeholders involved in managing food allergens.

• Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical Industry Reference Committee (IRC) The Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical IRC is responsible for national training package qualifications relevant to food processing and manufacturing, beverage manufacturing, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical manufacturing.

• Department of Agriculture and Water Resources – Imported Food Consultative Committee:

The Imported Food Consultative Committee (IFCC) is a consultative forum for the Department of Agriculture and

Water Resources and the food and beverage importing industry.

Aims

The IFCC is to be an effective consultative forum for the department to consult on:

i. improvements to the effectiveness and efficiency of departmental measures taken to provide for the compliance of imported food with Australian food and public health standards;

ii. coordination of department and industry activities to facilitate the clearance of food and beverage imports;

iii. policy development; and iv. regulatory changes required to ensure that the recommendations from government commissioned

reviews of the Australian food regulatory system and the Imported Food Control Act 1992 are implemented.

Industry Representation

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

2019 has brought new team members and board members for AIFST. Our current team and Board work incredibly

well together and we cannot wait to see what 2020 has in store for us.

AIFST Team

The current AIFST team consists of:

• Fiona Fleming – Managing Director – 3 days/week

• Carilee Hicks – Administration Manager – 4 days/week

• Clive Russell – Business Development Manager – 3 days/week

• Alexia Morelli – Communications Officer – 2 days/week

• Robin Sherlock – Education and CPD Manager – 2 days/week

• Annette Votteler – Finance Manager – 1 day/week

• April McElligott – Membership Services Officer – 2 days/week

• Elizabeth Yee – Membership Services Officer – 2 days/week

Back row (R-L): Elizabeth Yee, April McElligott, Clive Russell, Alexia Morelli

Front row (R-L): Annette Votteler, Fiona Fleming, Carilee Hicks, Robin Sherlock

AIFST Board

The current AIFST Board members are:

• Peter Schutz - Chair

• Fiona Fleming – MD and Company Secretary

• Dr Chris Downs – Non-Executive Director

• Trent Hagland – Non-Executive Director

• Dr Steven Lapidge – Non-Executive Director

• Sandra Loader – Non-Executive Director

• Duncan McDonald – Non-Executive Director

Governance & Management

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

What can members expect for 2020?

The key focus areas going forward will be:

• Grow – personal development, growing the next generation of food scientists and technologists and growing the

Institute.

• Learn – about the industry, about advances in science and technology, about other sectors, about things you

don’t know or need to know.

• Connect – connecting members with members, members with industry, industry with industry, to meet

likeminded people.

• Champion – a voice for food science and food scientists within industry, academia, grow respect for the industry

and the profession.

How do current and future initiatives fit into these key focus areas?

The following table provides a quick snapshot.

These key focus areas will be picked up in the 2020 – 2022 Strategic Plan.

Grow Learn Connect Champion Membership Services National Mentoring Program Member & Industry events Consultants Register

Continuing Professional Development

Membership – Professional and Fellows

Key Events Summer School Annual Convention AIFST Awards Communications food australia Bitesize Social Media Partnerships & Engagement

Looking Forward - 2020

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

Some key initiatives that will be progressed in 2020 are set out below:

• Continuing Professional Development Program (CPD) We are planning to focus on the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program to support members

with their development and provide meaning to the AIFST post nominals.

• Mentoring Program

This year the National Mentoring Program was a success, yet again. We will be calling for expressions of

interest for the 2020 program later this year.

• Branches and Special Interest Groups

We will continue to work with the newly established branches to provide local events for members

throughout the year.

• Member & Industry Events

We are continually looking for ideas for webinars and face to face workshops – we are planning to run our

Food Recall and Food Regulation Workshops in Sydney and Melbourne early in the new year, and in other

locations later in the year. Again, we welcome your ideas.

• Partnerships & Engagement

In addition to communicating with you, our members, we will also continue to build links with international

institutes, predominantly the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and the New Zealand Institute of Food

Science (NZIFST).

We are very excited to continue to build on the already strong relationship that we share with both

organisations and we look forward to working closely in partnership with IFT and NZIFST in the future.

Key Events – 2020:

• Summer School – 2020

Now that we have recovered from the Convention, our thoughts will turn to the AIFST Summer School,

which was established in 2010. It was set up to support undergraduate and post graduate students in food

science and related disciplines and so far, over 550 students have taken part since its inception. This will run

in early 2020 at RMIT University in Victoria.

Further details, available on the AIFST website.

• 2020 AIFST Convention

Theme - Food Science Revolution - Building a Sustainable Future

Planning for the 2020 Convention has begun. Next year the Convention will

be run in partnership with Foodpro at the MCEC in Melbourne over 6 & 7

July.

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2019 AIFST Membership Update

In closing

The Board are committed to a strong, relevant and healthy Institute that delivers on our key focus areas of

grow, learn, connect and champion.

I invite and encourage, all members to take an active role in engaging in the Institute. I encourage those

who have suggestions on improvements or opportunities to reach out – I am happy to talk to any member

directly at any time.

Please join us for the journey in 2020:

• Renew your membership

• Get involved

• Have a say

• Introduce someone new to the Institute!

Fiona Fleming

Managing Director and Company Secretary

October 2019