About us

Our priorities

Increasing understanding of alternative proteins: We are focused on strengthening the evidence base on the benefits of alternative proteins, and ensuring those data and insights are accessible to consumers, business leaders, policymakers, media and more.

Strengthening pathways for engagement across the supply chain: We are delivering valuable insights to farmers interested in diversifying their crops, ingredients makers considering the growing demand for domestically produced protein ingredients, and Australian and New Zealand businesses seeking to bolster their exports, particularly into Asian markets.

Making the business case for investment: We are providing key insights to both public and private investors, backed by market analysis and our collective knowledge of where the local alt-proteins sector is headed, to ensure funding into high-impact areas.

Our shared vision

Food Frontier and Cellular Agriculture Australia share a vision: To build a resilient and sustainable food future in Australia

How we move the needle

Driving dialogue with data

Critical research to drive informed, widespread engagement

Supporting food producers

Advice, introductions and resources for companies, start-ups and farmers

Advising policymakers

Insights for governments and peak bodies to inform policy decisions

Our legacy and impact

After a decade driving food systems, environmental and poverty alleviation initiatives across five continents, Thomas King recognised that the growing impacts of our global food system underpinned these challenges, and many others our world faces today. Realising the huge potential of emerging proteins to increase the safety, sustainability and security of our food supply, he founded Food Frontier in 2017 as Australia and New Zealand’s independent think tank on alternative proteins.

Over the past eight years, Food Frontier has worked across research, policy, industry engagement and public discourse to help build critical foundations for the alternative proteins ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand. From the outset, Food Frontier’s role was not to commercialise products or advocate for a single solution, but to build the conditions for informed, accelerated progress. As an independent think tank funded by grants and donations, Food Frontier has worked to mobilise stakeholders around sound evidence, practical dialogue, and cross-collaboration—helping industry, government, researchers and the broader agri-food system understand where new proteins fit within a resilient future food system.

Our work today

We have merged into Cellular Agriculture Australia to focus on the most promising opportunities across cultivated, fermented and plant-protein innovations and establish a unified voice that can drive a coherent strategy for Australia’s future food technologies sector. CAA’s program delivery will continue to engage the government, industry, researchers, and other ecosystem builders to build the policy, regulatory, investment, and public foundations required to unlock a new generation of food and ingredient production in Australia.

Food Frontier’s research, reports and resources continue to remain available here on our website. For the latest news and resources please visit cellularagricultureaustralia.org and find our joint statement here.