The Golden Hive Award was created in recognition of a company or individual that goes above and beyond, selected by Food & Drink Business from the category winners. This year the Rising Star/Emerging Leader winner, Sam Musson, has been awarded the 2026 Golden Hive, impressing the judges with her work reshaping how the food industry thinks about surplus agricultural produce.
Through my work with Zest Element and the development of Harvest ResQ, she is demonstrating how surplus fruit and other crops can become valuable ingredient streams for food manufacturers rather than being treated as waste.
As a result of this work, she has been invited to contribute to industry discussions including a panel at the Innovation and Sustainability Summit in Townsville with OzHarvest, and to speak at GrowHer – Advancing Young Female Founders through AgTech, a Queensland Government funded program.
Looking ahead, Musson’s goal is to expand Harvest ResQ into a global network of on-farm processing hubs that help farmers recover value from surplus crops while supplying the food industry with natural ingredients.
