Food and beverage businesses that delay adopting AI, precision agriculture, digital modelling and fermentation technologies risk being locked out of the commercial opportunities attached to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, a new perspective paper from Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) says.
From Farm to Global Stage: A Panel Perspective on Feeding the Brisbane 2032 Games distils four themes from the expert panel convened at the 30 April launch of FaBA’s white paper, Feeding the Brisbane 2032 Games, which drew on a roundtable of 80 industry, government and academic participants.
The perspective paper is blunt about the commercial consequence of inaction. Organisations should begin preparing now by adopting technologies expected to be well established by 2032, it says, and failure to do so may risk exclusion from opportunities associated with the Games.
Familiar food, different production
The panel’s position is that what is on the plate in 2032 will look much like what is on it now, but there would have been changes is how it is made.
Future of Food Consulting food futurist, Tony Hunter, said, “I don’t think we’re going to be eating something that doesn’t exist today… But I think what will change is the way some of those food products are produced.”
Cellular agriculture and precision fermentation are identified as the production shifts most likely to matter, with growth expected in plant-based and hybrid products combining plant proteins, fungi and animal sources, driven largely by younger consumers. Personalisation is expected to accelerate, with food choices matched to individual microbiome profiles and wearable sensor data.
On-farm, Microsoft senior industry advisor, Melissa Witheriff, pointed to work in India combining satellite data, weather forecasting, AI and real-time soil analysis, delivered to farmers in local languages via mobile. The paper reports a 40 per cent increase in sugarcane productivity alongside input reductions of up to 20 per cent.
For manufacturers and logistics operators, the more immediate application is scenario modelling. Witheriff said AI and digital twins allow planners to simulate multiple scenarios, anticipate disruption and place the right volumes in the right locations. She also cited deployments in Finland where AI-driven services guide visitors from airport arrival to venue, tailoring dining recommendations to dietary profiles and redirecting crowds to less congested outlets.
“…AI can help people experience a city like a local, using personalised, real-time insights to connect them with the best places, services and experiences,” Witheriff said.
Athletes and spectators are separate markets
The paper warns suppliers against treating Games catering as a single market.
University of Queensland School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences head, Professor John Cairney, said athlete provision must be safe, trusted and individualised, while venue, food court and at-home consumption is shaped by broader consumer preference. Treating the two as one risks oversimplification, he said.
Olympic bronze medallist rower and University of Queensland MD student, Ria Thompson, said elite dietary practice is developed over years and athletes are unlikely to eat unfamiliar food on the most important day of their careers.
“Nutrition isn’t something athletes leave to chance… if athletes cannot consume what they are used to… it could really be a performance disaster,” Thompson said.
The paper also notes that past events have shown an overemphasis on sustainability, without balancing performance needs, can compromise athlete nutrition. Cairney argued planning should start with Paralympians, on the basis that food provision that works for that group will work for all competitors.
The export runway
The strongest commercial argument in the paper is that any lift in production capacity built for the Games should be matched to export demand that outlasts it.
End Food Waste CRC national reduce program leader, Professor Simon Lockrey, said, “…there are going to be major opportunities for legacy for SMEs through to big business, governments and communities… one I can think of in particular is around export.”
Delivering that requires sequenced harvests, storage and logistics planned as a runway to Games-time demand, coordination between Queensland state departments and DFAT, and supply agreements with international partners established well before 2032. The paper is explicit that those relationships must be in place long before the Games commence.
On infrastructure, the paper argues the case is for resilience rather than volume of new build, citing pandemics, natural disasters and climate impacts as evidence that road, rail and port capacity supporting agriculture is already a pressing gap. It follows CSIRO’s South East Queensland Food System Strategy, which made a similar case for coordinated action on regional supply chains ahead of 2032.
Lockrey also pushed for SMEs to be included in co-designing the service models, arguing a mix of business sizes delivers more flexibility across different venue types, customer volumes and food formats, and gives the long tail of Australian food businesses a role in the event.
Waste as the legacy metric
The fourth theme is circularity. Lockrey framed food waste as the measure of whether the Games change anything.
“I hope we’re eating all of it (the food), because at the moment we’re eating about 60 per cent of the food we produce,” Lockrey said. “If we can think about circularity in these systems approaches, you can build in efficiency, you can reduce waste before it happens.”
FaBA director, Dr Chris Downs, said, “Brisbane 2032 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unite innovation, collaboration and sustainability, creating a resilient food system that people trust, grows businesses, expands global opportunities, and leaves a lasting legacy for Australia.”
Five recommendations
The panel closed with five recommendations:
- actively engage with emerging technologies;
- recognise athletes and consumers as distinct markets;
- foster collaborative innovation across the food system, including SMEs and the not-for-profit sector;
- build a resilient and adaptive food system through diversified supply chains, local production capacity and advanced modelling; and
- embed legacy planning across every part of Games delivery.
The paper was authored by Janet R. McColl-Kennedy, John Cairney, Simon Lockrey, Ria Thompson, Tony Hunter, Melissa Witheriff and Giorgio La Fata, and is available at faBA.
