KBC appoints tech czar
The Kiwifruit Breeding Centre (KBC) has appointed Roger Hellens as its inaugural chief technology officer.
The new organisation was established just over a year ago and is a 50/50 joint venture between Zespri and Plant & Food Research Institute (PFRI).
Its headquarters are in Te Puke, but also has staff located in Kerikeri, Motueka, Auckland and selected kiwifruit regions globally. The aim of the new centre is to take the existing 30-year relationship of successful kiwifruit breeding between Zespri and PFRI to the next level.
Dr Bart Challis, KBC’s chief commercial officer, says the breeding programme that’s existed in the past has been really successful with the development of Hort 16A SunGold and Ruby Red. He says the intention of the new joint venture is to build on this and give a much deeper integration for both partners.
Challis explains that the previous model was in part a transactional one and at arm’s length, whereas KBC brings together the organisations at a more strategic setting.
“It’s about enabling KBC to get the best out of the CRI ecosystem, whilst not necessarily being constrained by the bigger mission that CRIs have such as PFRI,” he told Hort News. “Whereas having a dedicated leadership team and focused solely on a kiwifruit and the breeding programme I think is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve here.”
Challis says the goal is to produce more and better cultivars faster. He says this sits over the top of a mission statement, which is to produce kiwifruit that suits the demands of consumers, growers and the supply chain.
“The ‘more’ is not simply a volume based measure in isolation,” he explains.
“It’s really about increasing our success in delivering on the market concepts and in turn providing the industry with increased commercial opportunity.
“In terms of the market concepts, Zespri gives us world-leading market insights and targets in that space, which could be an eating experience or something health related.”
Challis says the goal of KBC is to deliver solutions through technology, rather than technology delivering solutions. To that end, the KBC team is looking to tools in particular genomics aimed at speeding up the process of finding new suitable cultivars and special valuable traits within these.
“That means if you have a particular attribute that you want, you can use genomics to screen a population and identify the individuals that have what we are looking for, and by having the confidence that those attributes are well represented, it is effectively the equivalent of buying a better lotto ticket.”
Benefits of Genomics
According to Challis, this may not necessarily shorten the timeframe from initial research to commercialisation.
However, he says the options the new technology offers will be better ones. Challis adds that the benefits of tools like genomics have been proven globally and that is an area where some of the fundamental research being done by PFRI comes into play.
“Characterising what constitutes a unique genetic trait is not straightforward, so the scientific capability provided by PFRI is hugely powerful. In addition, there is also a strong focus on digital and the translation of data into predictions,” he explains.
“If you can get to a prediction which says, if you do A and B and we will get C and D, or whatever, as the outcome, that will accelerate your breeding programme and shorten the journey.”
Challis says, in the past, the focus has been somewhat on the ‘better’, which was the novel cultivars such as red, but the goal of KBC is now to see how they can change the trajectory and place more emphasis on developing these faster.
Challis himself has come to KBC from a series of successful roles in the biotechnology, technology transfer, life sciences, genomics and business development areas. He describes himself as a scientist with a background in commercialisation and innovation.
Fellow members of KBC’s leadership team are experienced operators in the sector, many coming from Zespri and PFR, and all have a single focus on speeding up and improving the kiwifruit breeding programme.
Although not at liberty to talk about specifics, Challis says the pipeline of cultivar concepts has been developed over a long period.
“It represents a huge asset when it comes to dealing with emerging risks such as climate change, as well as continuing to expand kiwifruit’s profile within the global food bowl.”
Finally, Challis says when you look around the world at great examples of globalleading fruit brands, they all have a strong focus on technical innovation within their breeding programmes, brand and quality. With the investment of both Zespri and PFR, NZ finds itself in a similar world-leading position.
