Australia and Indonesia tackle food waste with innovation challenge

Food and agriculture start-up accelerator, Rocket Seeder, is partnering with the City of Melbourne (Australia) and City of Bandung (Indonesia) to tackle food waste, with the launch of the Melbourne-Bandung Food Waste Challenge 2025.

Food waste is a global issue – it's estimated that 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year. Tackling food waste represents a triple win opportunity – for the climate, for food security, as well as for the sustainability of food systems.

Melbourne and Bandung both host established ecosystems of innovators, entrepreneurs and leading technology universities which strengthen their ability to rapidly respond to challenges. This shared challenge provides an opportunity to collaborate on finding innovative and scalable solutions to tackle food waste in cities.

The Melbourne-Bandung Food Waste Challenge focuses on three industry sectors: hospitality, fresh food markets, and airlines. Each sector is supported by an Industry Partner in Melbourne and in Bandung.

Industry partners will provide challenge participants with insights into the food waste challenges faced in their businesses and industry, feedback on proposed solutions, and an opportunity to pilot winning solutions from the Challenge in their business operations.

Applicants will have the opportunity to collaborate with selected industry partners to develop their solution for real-world problems, access exclusive industry briefings and back-of-house facility tours, and receive expert mentoring, workshops and industry feedback to test and validate their solution.

The winners will get the opportunity to pilot their solution in an industry partner’s business operations, participate in the Rocket Seeder Accelerator program, and receive additional support to take their innovation to the next level.

There will be a Challenge Information Session run online on 12 February, and applications are now open to register for the Challenge at rocketseeder.com. The team at Rocket Seeder is looking forward to seeing what innovation solutions emerge through this program.