skills acTion Plan for The food and Beverage secTor - Department of ...

and science and technology’s ability to provide solutions
‘palatable’ to a wide range of consumers).
Increasing demand for vegetable-based foods that
combine health, style and convenience can best be
met by growers and processors developing skills and
networks to make use of science, technology, marketing
and organisational innovations. These innovations are in
relation to growing produce; environmental management;
understanding emerging market demand; adding value
in processing, storage and packaging; and enabling more
efficient distribution to maintain freshness, goodness,
flavour and appearance.
A two-phase approach to the research has been adopted.
Phase one has been completed with findings outlined below.
The first phase aimed to help stakeholders understand
and be able to take action to improve adoption rates.
In the first instance it is exploring the range of attitudes,
behaviours, skills, relationships, and networks that decision
makers and ‘ground floor’ staff need in order to assess:
• The potential of an innovation.
• The nature of the change process that would be
involved in adopting it.
• The requirements for successful implementation.
It also sought to understand the impact that the presence
or absence of highly qualified staff or PhD students has on
assessment, change management and implementation. The
research looked at the impact of organisational culture
and organisational practices on openness to adoption, and
adoption rates.
Key findings from phase one are:
• There appear to be three primary drivers as to
how open or otherwise businesses are to adopting
science and technology. The most significant is the
focus on survival, either through increasing efficiency
or matching competitors’ products. The second is
that lack of scale means using cash flow rather than
debt/equity to fund improvements, which biases
investment towards incrementalism rather than
disruptive innovations. The third is the impact of the
characteristics of the owner or manager – the higher
their levels of confidence and vision to take risks, and
analytical skills and education, the more likely it is they
will adopt science and technology.
• Secondary drivers include the:
• Speed with which investment decisions can be made.
• Style and structure of management.
• Level of in-house scientific and technical expertise;
where high transaction costs with sourcing seasonal
staff lead to technology substitution for labour.
• Difficulties to do with the availability and suitability
of labour where it has been a factor in decisions
to increase levels of automation so as to reduce
reliance on labour. This is in part to do with the
seasonal nature of the industry, especially in growing
where there is no guarantee that next year’s labour
pool will be the same as last year’s, leading to
significant transaction costs.
• At the commodity growing and processing end of
the vegetable industry value chain, there are well
established systems, processes and networks
supporting the adoption of technology for survival
(for now).
• Few companies are targeting niche local and export
markets with high quality and differentiated products,
where science and technology adoption (innovation)
are critical success factors, and the real returns lie.
This appears to relate to there being no apparent
modus operandi or development pathway available for
new products and for creating the value chain needed
to get them to market successfully. Furthermore,
large scale science and technology adoption, to drive
economic transformation, requires the industry as
a whole to develop the willingness and capability to
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