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The winners of the 2026 Hive Awards have been recognised and celebrated as some of Australia's most innovative food and beverage manufacturers over the past year. The awards were presented on Thursday 21 May during a long lunch at Linseed House, Sydney, to a room of over 100 industry leaders abuzz with excitement. Read more
Sam Musson has been awarded the 2026 Golden Hive, impressing the judges with her work reshaping how the food industry thinks about surplus agricultural produce.
Welcome to PLAY Food & Drink Business news review for April. It was a big month – a global deal that reshapes the flavour industry, a significant structural shift at Australia’s national science body, and some frustrating news for the food relief sector. Let’s get into it.
Welcome to the latest issue of Food & Drink Business, the first quarterly issue for 2026. We have an extensive look at the trends in driving consumer behaviour and the opportunities they create for manufacturers. Our cover story is on the partnership between Process Partners and Bulla to deliver a world-class ice cream plant. And there is so much more.
Our Top 100 2025 edition of Food & Drink Business magazine is more than the annual flagship Top 100 Report. Industry leaders reflect on the year past and the one ahead, we provide our annual news review, M&A wrap-up, and all the executive moves, and a Roman-inspired sports drink, Posca, is our final Rising Star for 2025.
Food & Drink Business and IBISWorld present this year’s Top 100 companies, a ranking of Australia’s largest food and drink companies by revenue. This year reflects a sector positioning itself for immediate term viability and long-term competitiveness.
The Rising Star award took on a new format for 2026, honouring an individual shaping the future of the industry through leadership, initiative, and innovation. The Hive Award went to Sam Musson, who founded Zest Element and HarvestResQ to tackle the food waste crisis in Australia.
The 2026 Hive Award for Best Technology goes to Treasury Wine Estates, for its low- and no-alcohol wine production process. The company unveiled its new $15 million Barossa Valley dealcoholisation facility in February, which uses a proprietary Flavour Lock process to capture and reintroduce the wine’s aromatic essence.
The 2026 Hive Award for Best Packaging goes to Amcor Flexibles, for its AmPrima Recycle-Ready Packaging for Shredded Cheese. The product replaces PET and PVDC with a mono-PE structure that meets Australasian Recycling Label requirements, without compromising performance.
Freshwater Bev Tech has received this year's Gamechanger Award for its patent-pending unpasteurised production process, developed specifically to preserve bio-active compounds in the company's functional beverage brand, SUMMi Soda.
Simson's Pantry received the Best NPD Award for its High Protein Souvlaki, which delivers 10g of protein per serve while still maintaining the texture, flexibility and versatility consumers expect. By combining functional nutrition with everyday usability, the company has successfully introduced a new point of differentiation within the Australian flatbread category.
Bendigo Brittle has been awarded the 2026 Hive Local Manufacturer Award. The company is family-owned, employing a small team hand-producing hundreds of thousands of units of brittle every year in a custom-designed commercial kitchen in regional Victoria.
Aquafab received the Hive Award for Best Beverage Product for its novel approach to replicating the foaming capabilities of egg whites in cocktails, creating a first of its kind product with a shelf-stable formula of faba bean protein and water.
Federal ministers yesterday convened an urgent industry roundtable on plastics supply chain pressures, placing packaging reform and domestic recycling capability firmly at the centre of discussions around Australia’s food security and manufacturing resilience.
The Australian Beverages Council has renewed calls for urgent national packaging reform, saying global supply disruptions highlight the need for stronger domestic recycling and harmonised EPR.
Close the Loop has sold its US-based ISP Tek Services business for US$10m, as part of a broader strategic reset aimed at sharpening focus on its core packaging and resource recovery operations.
