• AgScience reports –

Farmers Weekly this week broke the news that the FoodHQ will be closed at the end of the month.

Shareholders had decided it will cease operating as a standalone organisation.

FoodHQ was established in 2013 as New Zealand’s “food super campus” to develop, launch and investigate food science and innovation opportunities at its Palmerston North base near Massey University.

According to the centre’s website, FoodHQ’s partners are the Bioeconomy Science Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North City Council and Fonterra.

It is described on its website as “the New Zealand hub of leading food and food production researchers that advocates for collaboration, food innovation and investment among researchers, industry, and policymakers to tackle challenges to advance the food industry”.

Now led by chief executive Dr Victoria Hatton, it was set up as part of a plan to invest $250 million over 20 years to develop the country’s first food-orientated campus.

Projects have included reports into emerging proteins such as hemp and fungi, developing a food market for GLP-1 patients, dairy’s next opportunity and the aquaculture sector’s future.

As Regional Economic Development Minister in 2018, Shane Jones announced a Provincial Growth Fund package for Manawatū-Whanganui of about $48 million to support projects across a range of sectors.

Among them was $100,000 to investigate FoodHQ’s development to assist food exporters.

RNZ this week said half of FoodHQ’s revenue ($840,000 in the past year) came from its shareholding members, and the rest from programme funding.

And the reason for closing it?

Farmers Weekly reported the organisation’s chair, Mark Piper, as saying the collaborations which FoodHQ had been created to build now exist in relationships across the system, and a separate organisation is no longer needed because of wider changes in the sector.

Other media reports noted that Mr Piper had been the transition chief executive of the Biosecurity Science Institute until recently.

He said he and others involved had not believed FoodHQ needed to operate as a standalone organisation any more.

“Collaboration was one of the big drivers over the last five plus or so years, and that collaboration is deeply entrenched now,” he said.

“All of those groups that are part of it meet regularly, connect regularly, do a lot of things together regularly. So that was one of the primary reasons for the decision that was made.”

FoodHQ will work through an orderly closure over the coming weeks, alongside members, tenants, partners and stakeholders.

According to the RNZ report, Mr Piper said he believed much of the work would continue.

He said regardless of FoodHQ, there was a broader question around the appetite for New Zealand’s public and private sectors to invest in more long-term, higher-risk research and development.

“Blue sky research, in a broader sense, is that stuff that’s a little bit risky, the stuff that maybe people can’t quite see whether it’ll succeed, and it’s probably ahead of where industry or consumers are.

“It’s harder to justify because it doesn’t have an immediate return on investment.

“I think there’s a there’s a challenge globally at the moment on that.”

No decision has been made on whether the annual food summits would continue.

Earlier this month, the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment said investment in primary industries and bioeconomy will be $194m each year by 2029/2030 – down by a third from 2026/27 forecasts.

Reacting to news of the FoodHQ closure, Dr Troy Baisden, an adjunct freshwater and environmental science professor and co-president of the Association of Scientists, said that during significant a period of reform in the science sector, this could stifle New Zealand’s future food innovation and technological developments.

“It looks like the FoodHQ issues that are causing it to close its doors are really par for the course with the simplifications in the science system,” he said.

“Unfortunately, these feel a lot like we’re playing musical chairs with things that matter.

“I think in the long term, it’s definitely a problematic move.”

Dr Baisden questioned whether the Bioeconomy Science Institute believed it could go it alone with work that FoodHQ had been doing.

“Is that really the case? We’re seeing an ageing sector; we need innovation that continues to turn the things that we can grow in New Zealand into high value products overseas; and we continue to need to develop a workforce that can do that.”

Dr Baisden said FoodHQ was run under a public-private model, but it was effectively independent to support small companies, start-ups or innovators with research and development.

The FoodHQ website says “we will be open and transparent”, but the news section of the website is silent on the matter of the closure.

The closure of FoodHQ is the second such national innovation hub closed this year. Ara Ake, which aimed to develop renewable energy innovations and repurpose the skills of Taranaki’s legacy oil and gas workforce into higher paying jobs in renewable energy, was closed on June 26.