FBP50118 : Emerging Food Industry in Australia : Protein Products Face

Introduction:

Protein is good for the health of an individual and a plant based diet is high on vegetables, cereals and legumes. Plants act as the rich source of various nutrients that helps in retaining the good health of an individual (Braun and Cohen 2015). This report discusses about the challenges and opportunities that the protein products face in Australia.

Overview of Protein Products Industry

The protein products are greatly popular in Australia as they can improve the nutrient intake and has a lot of health benefits. The protein products are consumed by a large part of the Australian population as it can help an individual in leading a healthy lifestyle.

Challenges facing Protein Products in Australia

Pricing is an important component that challenges the protein products in Australia. The animal agriculture industry enjoys a great deal of economic along with political advantage within the Australian market. The plant-based version of the meat along with eggs cost a lot more and this acts as a challenge for the Australian plant based food industry. The Australian government has some policy that favours the industry of animal foods. There are many companies related to protein products that are small and this poses a challenge for these products in the Australian market. The primary socio-cultural norm in Australia revolves around the consumption of meat and there is less demand of the protein products within Australia (Friel, Barosh and Lawrence 2014).

The protein products in Australia is a burgeoning one as compared to the food along with the beverage market. Mainstream acceptance pertaining to protein products is in the horizon in Australia. The consumers have a lot of concern regarding quality along with nutritional value of the protein based food products. There are regulatory hurdles in relation to protein products food in Australia that proves to be a hindrance in relation to the specific industry. The industry associations in Australia prevents them from making use of the classification terms that can help pertaining to consumer adoption. It is stated that the protein-based products would not be able to use dairy terms like “milk” and “butter” even though the plant based origin has been clearly labelled (Bonny et al. 2015). There are some protein based products that are highly processed which makes the consumers to question the health benefit in relation to the protein products. There are plant-based alternative that needs large amount of oil along with fat so that they can replicate taste pertaining to animal-based counterpart. The protein products lack nutritional content which is found in animal-based counterpart product (Dedehayir et al. 2017). The protein products cannot provide the essential along with non-essential amino acids. This poses to be a challenge for the proliferation of protein food products in Australia.

Opportunities facing Protein Products in Australia

The livestock production system has grown at a steady pace in the last few decades. Protein diversification can help in managing risks in relation to climate-affected supply chain. The alternative protein can help in offering food production model that is sustainable and the millennials adopt meat-free diet that signals a shift from the earlier generation. This sector can prove to be profitable owing to the rising demand for protein products in Australia. The wide reach of the social media and food provenance has ensured that the issue around sustainability along with animal welfare have an impact on the purchasing decision of the consumer (Gibson et al. 2016).  This has helped in opening avenues of opportunity in relation to protein products in Australia. The consumers in the present age have reduced the meat intake so that they can improve health (Bucchini et al. 2016).

The protein products have superior nutritional value and the animal-based dairy product stagnated in Australia. The ingredients like barley, flax along with pea milk have become very popular in the modern age and this helped in the proliferation of protein products in Australia. The food technology revolution that is taking place in the recent age can help in popularizing the protein products within the country. The novel ingredients along with biotechnology can help in producing protein products without using animal (Janssen et al. 2016). The growing health burden of the recent age has forced the government to issue the dietary guidelines that can help in reducing meat consumption.

The Australian government is considering effect of diet on climate along with environment and this has paved the way for the rising dominance of protein products within Australia. There are many people in Australia who are sensitive to the issue of animal welfare and this can play a great role in growing of the protein products (Smith et al. 2017). There are antibiotics present in meat that can help the protein products in Australia in making profit.

Implications

The consumers in the recent age have become sensitive pertaining to conditions of the raising of animals and this can provide opportunities for the spread of the protein products food industry. The nutritional value that is provided by the protein products like vitamin, fibre and healthy fat can help in preventing the developing of chronic degenerative disease.

Conclusion:

Pricing poses to be a challenge for Australian protein products. Animal agriculture industry of Australia enjoys a great deal of economic and political advantage. Protein based version of meat is expensive that poses a threat for the plant based industry of Australia. The consumers in the present age have a lot of doubt regarding the quality and nutritional value of plant based food. There are regulatory hurdles in Australia that acts like a barrier for the industry pertaining to protein products. There are industry associations present in Australia that forbids them from making use of classification terms. The opportunities in relation to protein products arises owing to the fact that protein based products are sustainable and millennial can adopt that of meat-free diet that suggests a shift from earlier generation. There are population segment in Australia who want to take recourse to protein products and this can help this industry in making profits. Social media has talked about how the consumption of protein products can help in regard to sustainability and promote the welfare of the animals in the society.

References:

Bonny, S.P., Gardner, G.E., Pethick, D.W. and Hocquette, J.F., 2015. What is artificial meat and what does it mean for the future of the meat industry?. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 14(2), pp.255-263.

Braun, L. and Cohen, M., 2015. Herbs and Natural Supplements, Volume 2: An Evidence-Based Guide (Vol. 2). Elsevier Health Sciences.

Bucchini, L., Guzzon, A., Poms, R. and Senyuva, H., 2016. Analysis and critical comparison of food allergen recalls from the European Union, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A, 33(5), pp.760-771.

Dedehayir, O., Smidt, M., Riverola, C. and Velasquez, S., 2017, December. Unlocking the Market with Vegan Food Innovations. In ISPIM Innovation Symposium (pp. 1-13). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).

Friel, S., Barosh, L.J. and Lawrence, M., 2014. Towards healthy and sustainable food consumption: an Australian case study. Public health nutrition, 17(5), pp.1156-1166.

Gibson, A., Franklin, J., Pattinson, A., Cheng, Z., Samman, S., Markovic, T. and Sainsbury, A., 2016, September. Comparison of Very Low Energy Diet Products Available in Australia and How to Tailor Them to Optimise Protein Content for Younger and Older Adult Men and Women. In Healthcare (Vol. 4, No. 3, p. 71). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Janssen, M., Busch, C., Rödiger, M. and Hamm, U., 2016. Motives of consumers following a vegan diet and their attitudes towards animal agriculture. Appetite, 105, pp.643-651.

Smith, P.K., Masilamani, M., Li, X.M. and Sampson, H.A., 2017. The false alarm hypothesis: Food allergy is associated with high dietary advanced glycation end-products and proglycating dietary sugars that mimic alarmins. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 139(2), pp.429-437.