2025
Our education and insights team has been highly active in South East Asia, providing market support seminars and collecting customer preferences for wheat quality.
During April 2025, we delivered Australian wheat quality seminars to flour millers, food manufacturers, grain traders and other grains industry representatives across Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
AEGIC’s 2025 seminars, led by Dr Larisa Cato, focused on the quality and functionality of Australian wheat for noodles and bread for this important market.
The annual seminars were well attended by customers who highly appreciate the kind of market support and education that AEGIC provides.
“Transparent, specific, detailed, up-to-date information. See you again next year!”
Indonesian wheat seminar participant
We have also been working with customers in the region to document their wheat quality preferences as part of our Wheat quality market intelligence: South East Asia project.
The project – an investment of Grains Australia – is investigating the wheat quality requirements of customers in key South East Asian markets. This project builds on previous market intelligence delivered by AEGIC.
Information derived from this objective market feedback will support industry development of new wheat varieties that meet the needs of customers for different products, supporting Grains Australia’s market-driven classification.
The new project will deliver up to date objective quality requirements for baked products and noodles in the region. The new project also focuses on documenting the needs of our customers for their steamed bun, cake and cookie products, which will inform soft wheat breeding programs.
Using choice modelling methods, combined with traditional survey tools and contextualising conversation with over 30 milling companies, we are collating objective evidence on customer preferences and quality targets, empowering the industry to make better informed decisions around wheat classification, breeding, and production.
Our wheat has a great reputation in South East Asia, particularly for noodles. South East Asia is Australia’s most valuable wheat market, worth $3.7 billion in 2024. That’s 44% of the value of all Australian wheat exports in 2024.
Providing ongoing training and technical support is highly appreciated by customers and makes it more likely they will continue to purchase from Australia. AEGIC helps maintain Australia’s position in South East Asian markets by engaging with flour mills and their customers to understand what they need from Australian wheat.
This information is provided to the Australian industry to help inform breeding decisions so that wheat continues to meet their needs.
2024
Wheat customers in South East Asia and Taiwan have told us that our Australian wheat quality seminars are highly valuable in helping them optimise the value of Australian wheat.
Between March and May 2024, AEGIC delivered seminars in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila and Taipei to flour millers, food manufacturers, grain traders and other grains industry representatives.
Feedback from participants was very positive.
Our wheat has a great reputation in South East Asia, particularly for noodles. South East Asia is Australia’s most important wheat market, with more than $6 billion worth of exports in 2023. That’s more than 40% of the value of all Australian wheat exports.
This chart shows the value of 2023 Australian wheat exports to major South East Asian markets, compared with the total value of all Australian wheat exports (source: ABS).
AEGIC’s 2024 Australian wheat quality seminars, led by Dr Larisa Cato, focused on the quality and functionality of Australian wheat for noodles and bread for this important market.
The seminar series began with a highly successful event in Jakarta attended by about 100 representatives of Indonesia’s flour milling and manufacturing industry. Guests received practical, technical information about the benefits of Australian wheat and how to optimise their milling processes and there was great interest in AEGIC’s eLearning program for flour millers.
South East Asia is one of Australia’s most important markets for wheat. Providing ongoing technical support is highly appreciated by customers and makes it more likely they will continue to purchase from Australia. AEGIC helps maintain Australia’s position in South East Asian markets by engaging with flour mills and their customers to understand what they need from Australian wheat.
This information is provided to the Australian industry to help inform breeding decisions so that wheat continues to meet their needs. For example, AEGIC research found that Australian wheat is highly regarded for colour, and texture can be improved.
Feedback from seminar participants
“Great learning experience. I would highly recommend.”
“The quality information was superb and to see it visually in the lab/bakery was great.”
“I think this training is very helpful for people in the grain industry.”
“Great presentation and knowledge form Larisa very happy to discuss and hear ideas.”
“More engagement would be better, but this seminar is a great step in the right direction. :)”
In a separate project with breeding company InterGrain, AEGIC is seeking opportunities for WA udon noodle wheat to potentially be used for other premium food products throughout Asia.
While in market, we also spoke to noodle makers like Jakarta’s Eddy Mie (pictured below), who prefers using Australian wheat because of its good colour and texture. Eddy uses about 250kg of flour each day for freshly made noodles which are then sold at their street-side vendor. His business is all about fresh yellow alkaline noodles (three different shapes and sizes) and wonton skins.
AEGIC is an initiative of the Western Australian State Government and Grains Australia.