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CSIRO holds more than 3000 patents and is ranked in the top twenty patents holders by the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

CSIRO holds more than 3,000 patents.

In the agriculture and food areas, we have more than 200 inventions and associated know-how in our intellectual property inventory ready for partnering.

Our technologies and expertise available in food and agriculture include:

1. consumer preference and sensory perception

  • sensory technology for flavour and aroma perception assessment and modelling
  • consumer preference mapping for access to new markets.

2. functional foods and ingredients

  • encapsulation technology for oils, micronutrients and probiotics
  • nano emulsion formulation and preparation.

3. healthier foods

  • reformulation strategies for lower fat, sugar and salt, dietary fibre and micro-nutrients.

4. value-added manufactured products

  • high pressure processed next-generation products such as meal solutions
  • extrusion of nutritionally enhanced products and ingredients.

5. sustainable manufacturing

  • utilisation and value-addition of by-product for recovery and conversion into higher value ingredients and products
  • separation technology for reduction in chemical usage and output.

6. agricultural production

  • animal and plant breeding for production efficiency, quality and nutritional traits.

How we help the food manufacturing industry

We can help your company realise its growth potential through providing access to CSIRO expertise, infrastructure and protected technologies. Product development based on CSIRO existing patents and know-how can provide a springboard for developing proprietary advantage over your competitors.

Accessing existing CSIRO and new project intellectual property through licensing can provide you with a competitive advantage and protection of your investment in your manufacturing business.

CSIRO's food innovation centre:

  • provides companies with specialist advice to identify and evaluate CSIRO intellectual property relevant to their business innovation interests
  • undertakes confidential technology assessments identifying solutions to your innovation problems
  • develops further the intellectual property's ownership position your company may already hold.

We are currently seeking industry partners for commercial application development and licensing opportunities.

Licensing case study: Clover-NuMega Ingredients

An electron micrograph of a MicroMAX particle.

Fish oil is a good source of nutritious omega-3 fats but its chemical instability, often leading to off smells, has limited its use as a food ingredient.

CSIRO's scientists overcame these problems by developing a technology that encloses microscopic droplets of fish oil in robust films. MicroMAX® masks the fishy flavour and extends the shelf life of omega-3 oils. The technology has unmatched encapsulation efficiency, oil loading capacity and stability.

Fifteen years ago, Clover Corporation, then a small nutrition technology ingredient company based in Melbourne's west, licensed the technology from CSIRO and since then have been manufacturing omega-3 powder ingredients using CSIRO's MicroMAX® technology and supplying them to local and international food and infant formula companies. Australian supermarket shelves are now stocked with a range of healthy omega-3 enriched food choices created using this unique encapsulation system.

To discuss intellectual property opportunities for your business, contact

Dr Carla Chinni

Manager, Crops, Food & Biotech (Business Development & Global)

Welcome to CSIRO's food innovation centre

Welcome to CSIRO's food innovation centre

[Music plays and CSIRO logo and text appears: Welcome to CSIRO’s food innovation centre]

[Images flash through of people selecting food from fridges and shelves in a supermarket]

Narrator: Consumer demand for healthy, convenient, new and safe food products is rising and market growth in the Asian region is booming.

More than ever manufacturing innovation is critical for the Australian food industry to capture these opportunities and be globally competitive.

[Image changes to show the outside of the CSIRO Food Innovation Centre Melbourne and then image changes to show employees looking at food samples of cheese and then the camera zooms in on a sample of cheese]

At our Food Innovation Centre we work with the food and beverage manufacturing industry to meet these opportunities and add value to their business.

[Images flash through of an employee looking at a sample, operating a computer, the computer screen, a heat shrink bag, a tube being filled with white liquid, an employee looking at a computer screen, the computer screen display, an employee filling a tube with bottles of juice and placing the tube inside a machine, a computer screen display and an employee emptying the tube]

We help companies innovate by creating next generation value added food products and ingredients, improving operating efficiencies, licensing ready to go technologies, making industry connections and adopting and developing new technologies and applications for safer, fresher, healthier and sustainably produced foods and more.

[Image changes to show an employee climbing up some stairs carrying a bag of maize polenta and then the camera shows employees watching a machine in use and then the camera zooms in on their faces]

In the last few years we’ve helped our clients create hundreds of millions of dollars in new food product and ingredient sales locally and in export markets.

[Image changes to show an employee operating the touch screen on a machine and then the image changes to show a machine with lots of tubes and the camera pans up the machine to the top]

This includes more than 25 new products in the retail market nationally.

[Image changes to show an employee operating a machine and then images flash through of different manufacturing machinery]

Companies are invited to use our manufacturing equipment to develop and launch new products into the market or collaborate with us strategically on breakthrough technologies.

[Image changes to show an outside view of the CSIRO facility in Brisbane and text appears: Brisbane]

[Image changes to show employees working with packaged meat and then the camera zooms in on a female writing on a clipboard, employees inspecting the meat, employees cutting a sample from the meat and an employee putting meat inside a machine]

Through our facilities in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney we have the most significant and extensive food innovation expertise available in Australia.

[Images flash through of an employee operating a machine]

Our pilot plants are unique facilities with a mix of conventional and emerging technologies supported by world class science.

[Image changes to show three female employees walking down a corridor and text appears: Sydney]

[Images flash through of an employee pouring juice, trying a sample, a computer screen display and a female employee operating machinery]

Our expertise in sensory, flavour, consumer science and food choices is unique helping companies develop new or redefine their existing products.  We help industry manage their food safety and product shelf life and meet food safety regulations in export markets.

[Image changes to show three employees inspecting a dough sample and then the camera zooms in on an employee pulling a sample from the dough and tasting it]

We’re also helping Australian food companies meet the rapidly growing demand in Asia for high value products.

[Image changes to show an employee operating a computer with two display screens and then the camera zooms in on one of the screen displays]

Our researchers help companies reformulate to reduce salt, sugar and fat and develop fortified products with functional health benefits while still meeting the taste preferences of consumers.

[Image changes to show an outside view of the CSIRO in Adelaide and then the image changes to show a male walking through the door and speaking to the receptionist and then the camera zooms in on the paper he is writing on]

We also work with manufacturers to substantiate food and ingredient health claims with expertise in lab scale analysis through to human nutrition trials.

[Images flash through of two people at computers, a person lying down, a computer screen display, a female pouring liquid and a female operating a computer and then the camera zooms in on the liquid being poured and the female operating the computer screen]

Whether you’re a small company with a novel idea or a large one looking to outsource key R and D services companies benefit every day from partnering with CSIRO.

[Camera zooms in on the computer screen and then the camera zooms in on the female employee]

It all starts with a conversation.

[Image changes and CSIRO logo and text appears: Big ideas start here, csiro.au/on]

Find out how CSIRO's food innovation centre helps food and ingredient manufacturers

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