Sharon Natoli: Speaking with Confidence & Growing Your Influence

A Short Course for Aspiring Female Leaders in Food Science

Due to the popularity of this course we are scheduling some more dates with the fabulous Sharon Natoli.

3 x 90 minute online sessions for female food scientists. Sessions will be held fortnightly over a period from 5th Aug - 2nd Sept 2025. Registrations are limited to 25 so be quick!

Course outline-

Session 1: Barriers, Intentions and Challenges (5 Aug)

• Awareness of the barriers that get in the way of speaking with confidence and growing your influence.
• Why confidence and influence matters in the workplace – what you gain from developing your skills in these areas.
• How to increase your confidence and influence – a starting point for change.
• Setting intentions.
• Getting into action - fortnightly challenge.

Session 2: How to Increase Your Confidence (19 Aug)

• Fortnightly challenge follow-up and sharing
• The power of words – words and phrases you can use to enhance your confidence
• Standing in your power – embodying confidence through your body language
• Structuring your message for clarity – using the power of three to create rhythm and memorability
• Shifting from nervousness to confidence – how to manage nerves before you speak or participate
• Getting into action - fortnightly challenge.

Session 3: How to Increase Your Influence (2 Sept)

• Fortnightly challenge follow-up and sharing
• Speaking to be heard – voice projection and warm up
• Five speaking styles for influence
• When to use more words and when to use less
• Managing your state – bringing energy to your speaking
• What’s next? Intentions and outcomes.

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER:

Sharon Natoli helps individuals, teams and leaders find their voice, grow their presence and ignite their influence by speaking up with confidence.

Sharon has 30 years experience in one on one counselling, communication, media and spokesperson roles, and as an advisor to organisations in the food sector assisting brands find their voice through key message development. Her professional experience is complimented by her personal understanding and empathy about the internal barriers that hold people back from speaking up and sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions with confidence.

Sharon’s philosophy is that speaking up is a critical ingredient for demonstrating leadership readiness and making the career contribution you'd like to make.

Food Science Fundamentals

Virtual Short Course

The aim of this course is to familiarise food industry staff on the basic principles of food science.

Understanding the language used to assist communication with other staff and customers. Identify how food science impacts and supports their non-science role. 

This course will be delivered virtually, and the content includes:

• What is Food Science?
• Food Policy & Regulations
• Food Chemistry – the building blocks
• The Future of Food
• Food Microbiology
• Nutrition – food and the human body
• Food Processing
• Innovation
• Sensory & Consumer Science
• Food Safety
• Food Safety Culture

The course is held over four (4) afternoons:

1. Thursday 7th August 2025, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (AEST)
   
2. Thursday 21st August 2025, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (AEST) 
3. Thursday 4th Sept  2025, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (AEST) 
4. Thursday 18th Sept 2025, 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (AEST) 

Only 30 places available.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the interactive nature and long hours these sessions will NOT BE RECORDED and you are expected to be in attendance to gain the most from this course.

AIFST25 Convention 12-13 August 

AIFST25 will be held as a face-to-face event, on August 12 & 13 in Melbourne featuring a full technical program and exhibition.

With the theme Grow, Learn, Connect, and Champion, AIFST25 will be held over two days with plenary and concurrent session streams, the convention will feature over 60  scientific and food industry speakers from across the agrifood sector. Food safety will feature strongly, alongside advances in health and nutrition, sensory and consumer science, food security and resilience, sustainability, and packaging. 

Please join us in August to grow, learn and connect.

Visit our AIFST25 website page HERE for partners and more!

AIFST25 Convention Tuesday 12 August 

Day 1 only ticket includes Tuesday 12th August 2025 face-to-face convention sessions and the Food and Wine Networking Event.

AIFST25 will be held as a face-to-face event, on August 12 & 13 in Melbourne featuring a full technical program and exhibition.

With the theme Grow, Learn, Connect, and Champion, AIFST25 will be held over two days with plenary and concurrent session streams, the convention will feature more than 50 scientific and food industry speakers from across the agrifood sector. Food safety will feature strongly, alongside advances in health and nutrition, sensory and consumer science, food security and resilience, sustainability, and packaging. 

Please join us in August to grow, learn and connect.

Visit our AIFST25 website page HERE for partners and more!

Food & Wine Networking Evening

A key highlight of the AIFST Convention is the Food & Wine Networking Evening and the 2025 event will continue this tradition.

We are excited to work closely with the venue and their suppliers to create a memorable night with outstanding wines and an unforgettable selection of canapés and wines.

The event is a great opportunity to create new connections and reconnect with your food industry colleagues in an informal setting.

Tickets:

Please log into your account to access the member pricing

Note -The food & wine Networking Evening social function is already included in all Full Convention Registrations and in any Day 1 only Convention Registrations purchased for Tuesday 12 August 2025

Thank you to our Food & Wine Networking Evening Partner Intertek/SAI Global 

AIFST25 Convention Wednesday 13 August 

Day 2 only ticket includes Wednesday 13th August 2025 face-to-face convention sessions and the Food and Wine Networking Event.

AIFST25 will be held as a face-to-face event, on August 12 & 13 in Melbourne featuring a full technical program and exhibition.

With the theme Grow, Learn, Connect, and Champion, AIFST25 will be held over two days with plenary and concurrent session streams, the convention will feature more than 50 scientific and food industry speakers from across the agrifood sector. Food safety will feature strongly, alongside advances in health and nutrition, sensory and consumer science, food security and resilience, sustainability, and packaging. 

Please join us in August to grow, learn and connect.

Visit our AIFST25 website page HERE for partners and more!

The AIFST Rise and Shine: Career Connect Breakfast will be held as part of the AIFST25 Convention.

This event is open to all students, young members and our 2025 mentors and mentees. 

The AIFST Rise and Shine: Career Connect Breakfast is proudly sponsored by ICS - Integrity Compliance Solutions.

* NOTE You must be a member of AIFST and registered to attend the AIFST25 Convention on 13th August to also attend this complimentary event

AIFST is proud to partner with Cultivate SA to share this opportunity:

Cultivate Connections Workshop

In the rapidly evolving food industry, developing a mature food safety culture with an organisational approach to food safety risk management is not just a regulatory requirement, but a competitive advantage and a cornerstone of consumer trust. We face complex and unpredictable challenges, from shifting compliance requirements and supply chain disruptions to geopolitical threats and rising sustainable development trends. 

The Cultivate Connections Workshop is designed to support participants to evolve their organisation’s food safety culture and tackle common challenges through cultural interventions. The workshop will bring together like-minded industry peers and expert facilitators with experience and insights to help work through practical scenarios. Attendees will gain fresh perspectives, discuss effective tools, and learn how to drive sustained meaningful change within their organisations.  

Learning objectives for participants include: 

• Identify and measure cultural attributes that impact food safety performance and speak to industry colleagues about their food safety wins and challenges.
• Discuss and apply effective cultural interventions to solve real food safety problems, including using leading indicators for continuous improvement, integrating food safety with people safety, and managing emerging risks.  
  
• Apply learnings from the workshop and others to formulate an effective food safety culture change plan to advance your organisation’s maturity.  

This event is open to food safety practitioners from the agri-food industry, including manufacturing, processing and primary production, who aim to improve their food safety performance. Diversity across sectors is encouraged to allow for free discussion, mutual learning and thought leadership without fear of competition. 

The workshop content is designed for senior executives (e.g. COOs, General Managers of Food Safety, Quality and Operations) and their mid-level associates responsible for food safety, quality, regulatory compliance and culture. 

Facilitators 

Your main facilitators for the workshop will be Dr Lone Jespersen, Principal, Cultivate SA and Dr Andrew Wilson, Core Team Member, Cultivate SA. We will also be joined by Ms Rachel Downey, Head of Food Safety and Quality, Bulla Dairy Foods, to discuss their experiences in evolving food safety culture to drive business performance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can you expect to walk away with? 

Participants can expect to leave with some fresh ideas and perspectives industry sectors that they would not normally interact with, along with some novel tools to help drive forward their own organizational food safety culture journey. By sharing experiences and collective wisdom around what has/has not been successful in strengthening food safety performance, participants will have an opportunity to return to their own organizations with renewed insights and look to review and improve their own culture action plans.  

Food safety is a sensitive topic for our organization. How will we share our stories without putting our company at risk? 

The workshop is designed to be held in a non-competitive manner, approaching food safety from a practical perspective on tools toinfluencing human behaviour through culture, rather than focusing on detailed technical aspects of production. Participants will be reminded of their obligations regarding attendance and facilitators will be managing discussions to ensure that the integrity of these ismaintained. 

What should you prepare? 

To get the most benefit from this workshop, participants should dedicate some time to considering their own internal experience around food safety culture and risk management initiatives. Some guiding questions for this might be: 

• Over the past year, what have we implemented to strengthen our food safety culture? What has been the effect of this? 

• What events have occurred and how have we learned from them? 

• Have we managed to avoid a potential significant event? What indicators alerted us to the risk and how did we identify them? 

• How have our people responded to our food safety culture initiatives? What are your front line/middle management/senior management saying?

Engage 2025: A hybrid education program for tertiary

food science students

Engage 2025 is an opportunity for tertiary food science students to come together to connect and learn from industry and academic leaders from across the agrifood industry The program is delivered in a hybrid format across 8 x 2hr sessions across several university locations. Students will have the opportunity to attend in person or virtually.
The aim is to enhance their current academic program and networks, building on their current skills and challenging their knowledge through critical and reflective thinking to better prepare them for the practical, real-world need for food science and their potential place within the agrifood industry. This program is intended to ‘jump start’ their industry readiness.

The course will be run over 9 x 2hr sessions. Eight of these sessions will be held face to face at university campuses around Australia and recorded for all registered participants. The final session, Careers, will be a Zoom session. These sessions would be delivered monthly from April 2025 to October 2025.

You are welcome to still register for this program as previous sessions have been recorded for all registrants.

Program topics include:

• The food industry status - agrifood industry trends
• Research & Development
• Sensory & Consumer Science
• Food Safety
• Sustainability
• Humanitarian Food Science
• Nutrition
• Careers in the agrifood industry

Session 1 University of Queensland - held on 1st April 2025

Session 2 La Trobe University - held on 1st May 2025

Session 3 Western Sydney Uni Richmond Campus - held on 26th May 2025

Session 4 Deakin University Downtown - Friday, 27th June 2025 from 3pm

Session 5 UNSW - Friday, 25th July 2025 from 4pm

(These events have concluded and have been recorded for registrants to access)

Session 6 RMIT City Campus - Tuesday, 26th August 2025 from 3.30pm

Session 7 University of Sydney - Tuesday, 23rd September 2025

Session 8 Uni of Melbourne - Thursday, 30th October 2025

Session 9 AIFST - October/November

AIFST and FaBA - Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator are looking forward to delivering this program for our student and graduate members.

Webinar 3: Resilience in the Regions – Decentralised Manufacturing & Remote Access of nutritious food

Theme: Building regional capacity, Indigenous participation, and economic resilience through shelf-stable food manufacturing

How can we strengthen our regions by rethinking where and how food is made? This session will explore how shelf-stable food innovation can empower remote and regional communities through decentralised processing, local value-adding, and Indigenous business participation. From modular manufacturing to community-owned infrastructure, we’ll ask: what already exists, what’s missing, and what’s possible? With the right models, shelf-stable production can reduce freight costs, improve nutrition access, and create meaningful jobs close to where food is grown. This conversation is about building resilience not just in the supply chain – but in communities themselves.

AIFST QLD Member Exclusive: KB Seafoods Factory Tour

Need to know:

• The tour has limited numbers, so register today to avoid missing out!
• Competitors to KB's and those from similar industries are not permitted on tour.
• The attendee list will need to be approved by KB's prior to the tour, so please wait for confirmation from AIFST that your tour spot has been confirmed.

Safety and PPE requirements for guests:

• No fake lashes to be worn inside the factory

• No piercings
• Closed in footwear
• Hair to be tied up
• Long pants to be worn
• No jewellery
• No fake nails, or you will need to wear gloves.
• KB will provide PPE (coats, shoe covers, hair nets and earplugs which are all required to be worn into the factory).

Please direct queries to aifst@aifst.com.au. We look forward to sharing this experience with our members, and hope you can join the QLD branch on this tour.

Marketing the health benefits of food products

The opportunities of Standard 1.2.7 and the risks of the food-medicine interface

No matter the category of food product, consumers now expect it to be healthier and better for them. But marketing the health benefits of food products – whether they are true or not – can open up a can of regulatory worms. This half-day workshop will cover the following:

• The risks of a claim re-classifying a product from food to medicine.
• How format can impact on health marketing (i.e. can my food be sold in a pill, tablet, or capsule)?.
• How has the regulation of sports supplements changed?
• Distinguishing between high-level health claims, general level health claims and nutrition content claims.
• Knowing whether the Food Standards Code needs to be amended or not.
• How much scientific information is necessary to self-substantiate a health claim.
• Assessing whether your product is eligible to make health claims (i.e. do I need to meet the NPSC and what on Earth is the NPSC?); and
• Identifying pathways to market the health benefits of a product without making health claims.

This workshop is suitable for people working in regulatory, marketing, QA, R&D, NPD and legal at food companies, especially those responsible for approving key marketing claims.

Presented by CharlesFisher,  KHQ Lawyers – Principal Solicitor in Food & Beverage 

Charles is a Principal Solicitor (Food and Beverage) at KHQ lawyers. Charles is one of the leading consultants and trainers on food marketing, compliance, labelling, classification, licensing, safety and food crisis management. He has spent more than a decade staring at Australian and New Zealand FMCG regulations. He has facilitated thousands of innovative food, beverage, cosmetic and health products in reaching the AUNZ market, and have negotiated favourable outcomes with many industry regulators, including but not limited to FSANZ, DAFF, TGA, NSWFA and more.

Not a member? Join online today!

Webinar 4: Sustainable by Design – Circular Packaging and Upcycling of By-Products

Theme: Consumer-led sustainability through smart packaging and food waste valorisation

Sustainability is increasingly shaping how consumers choose what to eat – and who to trust. Consumers are actively seeking products that reduce waste, use less plastic, and tread more lightly on the planet. This session will explore how shelf-stable products can meet that demand through circular packaging solutions and smart use of food by-products. We’ll hear from industry creating shelf-stable products that are not only better for the environment, but desirable on the shelf. From upcycled ingredients to compostable packs, we’ll showcase what real sustainability looks like – and what consumers are ready to support.

Webinar 5: The Future Retail Shelf and its Disruption, Foodservice, and Export Potential

Theme: Where shelf-stable is headed next – new formats, market disruption, premiumisation

What will shelf-stable foods look like in 10 years – and where will we be buying them? This session explores how innovation is reshaping the category through new formats, channels, and consumer experiences. From chef-driven ready meals to high-protein snacks, pet foods, and medicinal nutrition, shelf-stable is no longer just about cans on a shelf – it’s a platform for creativity, convenience, and commercial opportunity. We’ll unpack how retail, export, and foodservice are evolving to embrace high-quality ambient products, and how brands are tapping into health, sustainability, and premiumisation to stand out. The cold chain isn’t just being bypassed – it’s being reimagined.

AIFST online workshop: How to confidently make voluntary marketing claims food

How does the Australian Consumer Law go beyond the Food Standards Code?

Most of the marketing of food products is not prescribed by regulation in Australia. So how can we confidently assess whether our products are “natural”, “vegan”, “good for you”, “sustainable” or “fresh”? The key is being able to assess your risk of breaching the Australian Consumer Law. This half day workshop will enable participants to:

• Identify who their “reasonable consumer” is.
• Assess what their expectations may be; and
• Know how much evidence we need to hold to substantiate our marketing claims.

We will look at recent regulatory actions on emphasising key ingredients, origin claims, sustainability, and packaging claims, and more.

This workshop is suitable for people working in regulatory, marketing, QA, R&D, NPD and legal at food companies, especially those responsible for either substantiating or approving key marketing claims.

Presented by Charles Fisher, KHQ Lawyers – Principal Solicitor in Food & Beverage 

Charles is a Principal Solicitor (Food and Beverage) at KHQ lawyers. Charles is one of the leading consultants and trainers on food marketing, compliance, labelling, classification, licensing, safety and food crisis management. He has spent more than a decade staring at Australian and New Zealand FMCG regulations. He has facilitated thousands of innovative food, beverage, cosmetic and health products in reaching the AUNZ market, and have negotiated favourable outcomes with many industry regulators, including but not limited to FSANZ, DAFF, TGA, NSWFA and more.

Please note: Due to long length and interactive nature of this workshop it will not be recorded so please only register if you can attend on the advertised date

AIFST & SQF Food Safety Forum

We are proud to present the comprehensive AIFST & SQF Food Safety Forum — working together for a full-day event bringing together industry leaders, food safety professionals, and experts for a dynamic program of insights, innovation, and networking.

This forum will explore current and emerging trends in food safety, compliance challenges, and practical strategies to strengthen your food safety systems. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with peers, gain valuable knowledge, and stay ahead in an ever-evolving industry.

Who should attend: Quality assurance managers, food technologists, auditors, regulatory professionals, and anyone committed to food safety excellence.

More details and full program coming soon.