Poll Results: What's driving job growth in food & ingredients?
Functional Nutrition Is Reshaping Hiring in Australia's Food & Ingredients Sector
Last week, we put a question to our network: Which trend is creating the most exciting job opportunities in Australia's food & ingredients sector right now?
The results were striking — and they tell a clear story about where the industry is headed.
65% — Functional Nutrition
By a significant margin, functional nutrition came out on top. As consumers increasingly look for food and ingredients that do more — support gut health, boost immunity, aid recovery, manage weight — companies across the sector are ramping up investment in product development, food science and technical formulation talent. This is where we're seeing the strongest demand for candidates right now, from R&D scientists to technical sales specialists.
25% — Clean & Natural Ingredients
The move toward clean label and natural ingredients remains a strong secondary trend. Brands continue to reformulate away from synthetic additives, and that's fuelling demand for ingredient sourcing specialists, regulatory affairs professionals and quality assurance talent who understand the clean label landscape.
5% — Sustainable Packaging
5% — Plant Alternative Packaging
Packaging trends, while important to the broader sustainability conversation, ranked lower in terms of where our network sees the most active job growth right now — though we expect this to shift as regulation and consumer pressure continue to build.
What This Means for Hiring
For businesses in the food, flavours, ingredients, cosmetics and chemicals space, this is a strong signal: functional and clean label expertise is where the talent competition is heating up. If you're building out your team, getting ahead of the curve on functional nutrition capability could be a genuine competitive advantage.
For candidates, it's a sign that skills in nutritional science, functional ingredient formulation and clean label compliance are in high demand — and likely to stay that way.
Curious how these trends are playing out in your business? Get in touch with the Lurline Recruitment team — we're always happy to talk shop.