2024 Annual Report Letter
Food + Drink Victoria delivered a jam-packed calendar in 2024 kicked off by our signature event, the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. The Festival returned for its 32nd year with 171 events across a 10-day program attended by more than 71,000 happy Festival goers, supported by Visit Victoria and presented by La Trobe Financial.
The Festival was kicked off at Hilton Little Queen Street’s Luci, with a glittering opening night party, presented by OpenTable, that saw Melbourne’s culinary crème de la crème assemble in anticipation of 10 days of big flavours and thrilling collaborations.
The following morning we cut the ribbon at Dan’s Diner, presented by Dan Murphy’s. Open every day of the Festival, it featured food and drink from some of the hospitality industry’s pre-eminent Dans, rebooting the classic diner experience with a prominent position on the edge of Fed Square opposite Flinders Street Station.
On Friday, the city’s dean of deliciousness, Andrew McConnell, prepared a menu for 1,500 people in the sun-dappled Kings Domain for the World’s Longest Lunch, presented by La Trobe Financial. This was followed by the World’s Longest Brunch, presented by Cocobella, for a deeply flavourful excursion through some of the tastiest regions of India led by three of the country’s most important voices in contemporary Indian dining: Harry Mangat, Mischa Tropp and Helly Raichura.
Our Global Dining Series soared to new heights, courtesy of our partner Singapore Airlines with international superstar talent including Sarah Cicolini of Rome’s Santo Palato, Garima Arora of Bangkok’s Gaa, Manila hotspot Hapag, Mohamad Orfali, the man on the pans at the World’s 50 Best’s number one restaurant in the Middle East, Orfali Bros, London’s Noble Rot and Chengdu tofu god Zhang Fa amongst others.
Our Special Events program, presented by Square, was among the biggest and broadest in recent memory and our Westside Wanders, presented by Eat Drink Westside were a revelation in suburban dining.
On the final weekend all roads led to Fed Square, with thanks to City of Melbourne, for a carnival of free activity including Baker’s Dozen – a celebration of the city’s best cakers and bakers and Celebrity Sausage, presented by Baker’s Delight which saw a group of Australia’s favourite stars (Daen Lia, Art Simone, Matt Preston, Clare Bowditch, Remy Hii, Sarah Todd, Chyka Keebaugh, and Charlie and Ed Curnow among them) design their dream sausage sandwich.
The Pizza Sessions, presented by Gozney, rounded out the activity with a cast of Melbourne’s pizza thought-leaders: Casey Wall of Capitano, Ellie Bouhadana of Hope St Radio, Lucy Whitlow of Figlia and Theo Loizou of MasterChef.
Ahead of the Festival, in early March, Food + Drink Victoria delivered a Victorian food showcase at global summit ASEAN as commissioned by the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Across the three-day summit, F+DV programmed a Victorian food and drink marketplace in the media centre showcasing producers including Montague Apples, Mount Zero Olive Oil and That’s Amore cheese amongst others, as well as chef demonstrations which highlighted Melbourne’s global gastronomic talent.
The Drink Victorian campaign, an initiative designed to get more Victorian drinks on Victorian lists, returned for a third year. Food + Drink Victoria continues to deliver this campaign in collaboration with the Drinks Alliance, a group comprising of Cider Australia, Independent Brewers Association, Spirits Victoria, Wine Victoria and Food + Drink Victoria.
The program underwent a significant change in strategy for 2024 with efforts focused on an industry tasting day and a consumer-facing activation month in June. Despite a reduction in funding from 2023, the results showed a strong take up from both drinks producers and the hospitality industry, proving the success of the Drink Victorian program and the opportunity to continue to create trade opportunities between producers and Victorian venues.
The industry tasting day grew considerably year on year with 920 attendees (up from 700 attendees in 2023, and 334 in 2022) – showing key interest from the industry to support this event and learn more about Victorian drinks, and ultimately stock them in their venues.
Thank you to Agriculture Victoria for supporting and believing in this initiative and for Global Victoria running complimentary trade activity during this period.
On the trade activity, Food + Drink Victoria worked with Global Victoria and Spirits Victoria to deliver an inbound trade mission alongside Drink Victorian for 14 international spirits buyers from across South-East Asia. Activity ranged from a welcome dinner at Embla attended by Treasurer Pallas, whisky masterclasses at Starward Distillery, a progressive tour of Melbourne’s best bars hosted by spirits expert Cara Devine as well as regional activity across the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula. Across the six-day program 24 Victorian distilleries were visited and more than 120 Victorian drinks were showcased.
In August, we celebrated at the glittering Society Restaurant where we were generously hosted by Chris Lucas for our annual Legends and Trailblazer Awards. We welcomed in a new era of programming with a Legend and Trailblazer awarded within each category. The Legend award winners were Judy Croagh of Western Plains Pork, Natalie Paull of Beatrix Bakes, Mac Forbes, Dan Hunter of Brae, Gerald Diffey of Gerald’s Bar and Duncan and Jan Thompson of Murray River Salt. In the Trailblazer category, awards were given to Ninna Larsen of Reground, Chayse and Blayne Bertoncello of O My, Tom Sarafian of Zareh, Imogen Hayes and Christina Trabucco of TINA, Julie Busuttil Nishimura and John Riviera of Kariton Sorbetes.
As part of our ongoing work on Vic Grown, in September we delivered The Scoop, a roaming ice-cream truck which showcased unique Victorian-flavoured ice-creams in collaboration with Melbourne ice-creamery Billy Van Creamy. Burd Eggs and Schulz Organic Dairy and St David Dairy were churned with products including King Valley walnuts, Collins Honey and Lake Tyrrell Salt to create five bespoke flavours. We popped up at Wesley Place, Abbotsford Convent, Queensbridge Square and the Royal Botanic Gardens scooping out 600 ice-creams a day.
We also engaged in an exciting new piece of work with Vicinity Centres, a celebration of Melbourne mall culture and food-court favourites called Greatest of the Mall and headlined by Raph Rashid, founder of Beatbox Burger, Taco Truck and All Day Donuts. This four-part content and event series featured Raph partnering with talent Senator Briggs, Rosheen Kaul, FlexMami and Mitch Orr with short films and event activity, and of course snacks, in Northland, Box Hill Central, Broadmeadows Central and The Glen.
And speaking of new, we worked with the City of Port Phillip to produce MFW Southside Crawl and Bites, a progressive dinner program in October spanning locations such as Acland Street, Fitzroy Street, Carlisle Street, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne.
In November, we launched the 2025 Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, announcing more than 200 events across Victoria, bringing regional activity back into the March program which will run 21-30 March and as we closed out the year, the team was busy creating the next generation program and funding proposal to Visit Victoria for the 2026 Festival and beyond.
I am delighted to commend the team on another incredible year which has seen the organisation go from strength to strength – consolidating a sustainable financial base and continuing to build on its reputation for delivering excellence in events, marketing and content. The ambition to become a year-round organisation, diversify revenue streams and grow Food + Drink Victoria’s digital presence while delivering on its mission to champion Victoria’s food and drink is being realised in more delicious and impressive ways than ever.
Justin Howden,
Chair, Food + Drink Victoria
