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There's never a dull moment in the dynamic Australasian packaging industry, with M&A activity, leadership changes, and product innovation keeping our news desk busy all year long.

From Orora's booming growth over the financial year, to the Australian Government's pledge to make all packaging in the country reusable, compostable or recyclable by 2025, to needles in strawberries and plastic bags out of supermarkets, to the first ever Print21 + PKN LIVE joint event, 2018 was a rollercoaster of a year for the packaging industry... and PKN was there to cover all the news highlights.

See our review of the year that was in the latest issue of PKN magazine.

Food & Drink Business

The livestock cycle is about to do something Global AgriTrends' Simon Quilty has never seen before, and the consequences run well past the saleyard. Several of the world’s major cattle producing countries are rebuilding at the same time, Australia is entering its own rebuild, and the sheep flock has already passed its tipping point. For anyone whose raw material is an animal, the next three years are the tight part of the cycle.

Companies developing the next generation of food, ingredients and biomanufacturing now have access to a food-grade pilot-scale precision fermentation facility in Australia.

Synlait Milk has reported a $75.4 million net loss for FY26, but a return to operational stability in the second half delivered a sharp improvement in earnings as the dairy processor continued its turnaround.