Read about ...

Competitive position of South Australia

To move forward the South Australian food industry needs to have a clear understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the global business environment coupled with the industry’s own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths

  • Diversity in regional climates, attributes and cultures
  • Strong biosecurity credentials
  • Recognised management and accreditation systems
  • Competitive land costs
  • Significant food education infrastructure
  • Established Research and Development infrastructure
  • Competitive transport costs
  • Innovative culture and tradition
  • Well developed science capability
  • Healthy independent retail sector
  • Primary industry funding schemes supporting innovation
  • Demonstrated collaborative mechanisms such as SA Food Centre, Constellation SA and
    industry associations

Weaknesses

  • Distance to Australian markets
  • Limited collaboration in exports
  • Threats to water supply/security
  • Land and marine use pressures
  • Rising input costs associated with business operations
  • Scale and complexity of distribution systems
  • An ongoing need for infrastructure in some regional areas
  • Conflicting land use pressures

Opportunities

  • Supply food to meet long-term food needs
  • Increasing demand for safe and nutritional food production systems
  • Increasing health consciousness
  • Increasing diversity of food markets
  • Maintaining and accessing new markets by having robust biosecurity credentials
  • Ensuring a competitive trade and service provider network
  • Small to medium food enterprises
  • Small local consumer market
  • Growing food service industry
  • Enhancing the food, wine and tourism experience

Threats

  • Exposure to commodity and currency volatility
  • Future labour shortages and low rates of skilled labour retention
  • Consolidating fresh and processed food markets
  • Cost of business operations
  • Impacts of climate change and variability
  • Access to capital for future expansion
  • Variability in access, quality and price of resource inputs