Food and Beverage Small and Medium Enterprise Packaging and Machinery Solutions Centre

The Food and Beverage SME Packaging and Machinery Solutions Centre is a new national initiative supporting Australian food and beverage SMEs to explore more sustainable packaging and processing solutions, without compromising shelf life, product quality or food safety.

SMEs are at the forefront of Australia’s packaging transition and your real-world challenges are exactly what the Centre was designed to solve.

Through the Centre you can access co-funded research, independent expert support, and practical solutions to help you move to sustainable packaging without compromising products or increasing food waste.

What does the SME Solutions Centre offer?

As businesses move away from problematic single-use packaging, many face a new challenge: how to adopt more sustainable formats without negatively affecting shelf life, product integrity, environmental outcomes or operational efficiency. The Food and Beverage Small and Medium Enterprise Packaging and Machinery Solutions Centre is designed to support SMEs to navigate this transition with confidence.

The Centre offers independent, research-backed support to help SMEs assess and trial packaging, processing and machinery changes that align with circular economy goals while reducing the risk of food loss and waste.

Through the Centre you can access:

Independent advice
Access expert guidance on packaging, processing, and machinery options, free from supplier bias.
Co-funded research
Dollar-for-dollar matched funding for short-term research and innovation projects (delivered within 12 months).
Lab and testing access
Access to 11 EFW CRC research labs across Australia, including RMIT, QUT, UQ, and SARDI
Support to test solutions before scaling them in-market
Streamlined LCA and mass flow cost analysis included in every funded project.

For SMEs facing complex decisions with limited internal resources, the Centre offers something rare: expert hands-on support, co-investment, and independent research all in one place.

How do projects qualify?

While each project will have a specific methodology depending on the food, packaging, machinery, and processing technologies involved, they must align to the core aims of the Centre:

to help drive ongoing national circular packaging innovations momentum;
to support industry to transition to new processing or new machinery; and,
to reduce food loss and waste, or at least not increase food loss and waste, in the process.

Projects need to determine this last point specifically and be delivered within 12 months.

All solutions will need to have the potential to be commercialised by applicant firms within 3 years from signing a project agreement. And, to assist in delivering the key aims of the Centre, a streamlined life cycle assessment (LCA) and/or a mass flow cost analysis will need to be conducted for all funded projects, including on comparison food loss and waste/packaging-processing-machinery benefits and impacts (to be budgeted for/within each project). The Centre will support participating SMEs to achieve this.

Applicant SMEs also need to:

hold an Australian-based ABN and/or CAN
be a Small Medium Enterprise, as per the Australian Government / Tax office definitions
have operated for over 2 years
be able to commit a $5k-$10k cash investment, plus in-kind contributions
provide a nominated project representative
have a clear 1 year project/3 year utilisation plan
provide a final report through the research partner
with the Centre’s support, provide an LCA/MCFA, and
agree to the CAPEX terms.

How to get involved

Eligible Australian-based SMEs are invited to apply through a rolling Expression of Interest (EOI) process, please complete the form on the following link.

Apply today

The Solutions Centre is a collaboration between RMIT University, End Food Waste Australia, the Australasian Institute of Packaging (AIP), the Australian Packaging and Processing Machinery Association (APPMA) and Tetra Pak.

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