Food Futures Taranaki challenged its audience to think about how to make their products globally appealing.
The world needs more food and Taranaki producers could be the answer.
Agriculture might have made the country rich in the past but Massey University vice-chancellor Steve Maharey said the time had come to learn how to turn what is grown into a commercially viable product.
Maharey, who was in Taranaki last week for the Food Futures event where members of the Taranaki food industries were urged to be more innovative, said this was the biggest challenge for not only the region, but the whole nation.
"Agriculture does not make any country rich - but food does. The difference between agriculture and food is you do something with the product you grow so the value of it grows," Maharey said.
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"But what we do best in the country is we grow food. We have a natural advantage because, on the whole, we get some water, we get some wind, we get some sun. So we have a natural advantage in the world to growing food," he said.
To aid in the industry's continued growth in the region, Massey University and Venture Taranaki have renewed their working partnership through until June 2017.
Venture Taranaki head of business partnerships Michelle Jordan said the agreement, originally launched in 2012, provided university expertise to the region so it could be accessed readily if a business needed help expanding and idea or overcoming an issue.
"What we're seeing is where companies have wanted to innovate and develop, Venture Taranaki and Massey University have helped them tap into resources to do so and maybe make commercial gain," Jordan said.
Massey's Taranaki business development manager Eve Kawana-Brown, who acted as a link between the two, said she tries to get projects relevant to the region on the university's radar so they can apply for funding for them.
"With some science projects, if they're on the university's radar they can apply for funding for them to be developed," Kawana-Brown said.
"The businesses themselves can't apply for grants from some of the funding sources designed to support innovation and new ventures, but an institution like a university can."
Venture Taranaki chief executive Stuart Trundle said the partnership had introduced a new way of thinking to the region's economic development sector, and would continue to help Taranaki's food industry grow.
"I think for companies engaging in conversations with distinguished thinkers, it actually gives you the opportunity to transform your business," Trundle said.
"That's the challenge - next week, it's transformation time in Taranaki."
