Fight Food Waste CRC Project
The Fight Food Waste CRC Project was a collaboration between the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre, Regional Development Australia Murraylands & Riverland (RDAMR), Honey and Fox and Curtin University. The project aimed to build the capacity of small food businesses to reduce and transform their food waste through circular economy approaches.
Project Completed
The Fight Food Waste Project has now concluded. Throughout its delivery, the project supported regional food businesses in recognising food waste challenges, developing tailored action plans and exploring innovative solutions to transform waste into opportunity.
Although the project is complete, its resources—including training frameworks, case studies and implementation tools—continue to help regional small businesses reduce waste, improve efficiency and adopt circular economy principles. The project’s outcomes contribute to long-term sustainability and inform future national strategies for food waste transformation.
What was involved in the project?
This project sought to understand how best to build the capabilities of regional food businesses to recognise and address food waste issues through the lens of a circular economy.
To achieve this, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 to 20 small food businesses across the Murraylands and Riverland region. These consultations informed the development of the following outputs:
- A short literature review summarising the latest research on food waste management and training, with a focus on the specific challenges faced by SMEs in rural and remote areas
- Food Waste Action Plans tailored for each participating business
- Two documented case studies highlighting:
- The problem identified and how it was discovered
- The potential transformation (from what to what)
- The change processes implemented to overcome barriers
- Lessons learned and insights into training needs (what participants wished they had known earlier)
- A Food Waste Management Training Framework designed for regional food businesses
- An Introduction to Food Waste Management training unit, developed and ready for piloting with the broader small business community beyond the Murraylands and Riverland
- A recommendations report to inform the design of a future national program rollout (phase 2)
The project helped participating businesses identify where food waste could be reduced to conserve resources and where waste could be transformed into value-added products or processes. The training framework and introductory module developed through this work laid the foundation for a potential national rollout, aimed at equipping small regional businesses with the skills to address food waste effectively.
The project’s findings and evidence base have been used to support the development of a business case for a future national program, with the aim of extending food waste transformation support to small regional food businesses across Australia.
While the project has concluded, its outcomes continue to inform best practices in food waste reduction and resource efficiency for regional food SMEs. The learnings and resources from this project lay a foundation for wider adoption of circular economy practices across Australia’s agri-food sector.
Our Action – Based on community feedback
Managing food waste is typically not the highest priority for small food businesses even though combined primary producers and food manufacturing businesses account for 55% of food waste annually in Australia
National Food Waste Baseline, 2019
