00:02Hi, my name is Jonathan Hicks and I'm very pleased and honoured to be recognised as a
00:072026 honoree in the sustainable food systems and supply chain leadership category. I've
00:13spent more than 30 years working across the food and dairy industries in Australia, the
00:18UK, Europe and the United States. One of the things that's increasingly shaped the way
00:23I think about our industry is a very simple question. How do we create more value from
00:28the resources we already have? That question is particularly important in
00:32dairy. Milk is an extraordinary raw material. It contains a remarkable
00:39combination of proteins, fats, minerals and other nutritional components. Yet much of
00:44the industry has traditionally focused on producing and selling dairy products in
00:48relatively conventional ways. I believe there is a much bigger opportunity. We
00:54should be thinking about how we create more value from every litre and every
00:57kilogram of milk we process. That means better returns for farmers, stronger and
01:03more resilient businesses for processes, better utilisation of our manufacturing
01:07assets, higher product yields, higher quality and a lot less waste. But it also
01:13means looking more carefully at the nutritional value that's present in milk
01:16and finding new ways to extract, preserve and deliver that value to customers
01:22through better nutritional functional foods and new applications. And I think this
01:28principle extends well beyond dairy. Whether we're looking at milk, sugarcane or
01:33other agricultural resources, we need to think differently about what we're doing
01:37with the raw material in front of us. Take sugarcane for example. It's not simply a crop from
01:45which we produce sugar. There is energy, fibre and other valuable material within that biomass.
01:51There are opportunities to turn those streams into additional products and
01:55sources of value, including for example say the potential to produce sustainable
01:59aviation fuel. The broader principle is simple. Don't just look at the primary
02:04product, look at the whole resource and ask what we can create from it. If we do
02:10that successfully we can improve returns to growers, strengthen regional industries
02:15and economies, reduce waste and the impact thereof and create new products and
02:20industries from resources we are already producing. For me that is where
02:24sustainability becomes meaningful. I don't see sustainability as something that
02:29sits alongside commercial performance or something you simply add to the
02:33business. I believe it has to be built into the way the business actually works and
02:38built into the way leadership thinks about their businesses. If we can produce
02:43more value from the same raw materials, reduce waste and improve efficiency, create
02:47better products and strengthen the economics of the entire supply chain then
02:51we are making the food system more sustainable in a very practical way. And
02:55importantly this isn't just about the processor or the consumer. This is about
03:00creating a stronger value chain through farming, manufacturing and supply chain all
03:06the way to the consumer and delivering more value to the farmer and more value to the
03:11consumer. I think the next chapter for dairy in the broader food industry is
03:15therefore not simply about producing more. It's about getting more nutritional,
03:19economic and environmental value from what we already produce. There is an
03:24enormous opportunity to combine manufacturing innovation, nutritional science,
03:28technology and commercial thinking to build food systems that are more
03:33productive, more resilient and ultimately more sustainable. I'm very grateful to the
03:39Icons of Change International Awards for this recognition and for the
03:42opportunity to share some of these ideas. I'm also very pleased to be recognized
03:47alongside people from around the world who are working in very different ways to
03:51make a positive contribution to sustainable development. Congratulations to all of the
03:5620 to 26 honorees and thank you again Icons of Change Team. I'm very proud to be part of it.
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