Robot coffee, native ingredients and the people behind FHQ 2026

Mindy Woods had a practical use for the macadamias: roast them, grind them into butter, then add warm water to make a cream for curry. At the Chef's Table, a conversation about native ingredients came with something the audience could watch being made.

Elsewhere on the floor, a robotic arm held a takeaway cup beneath a coffee machine. At another stand, a cordial company founder was telling us about the market-stall days when he coloured bottle labels by hand with textas.

That was the range of Food & Hospitality Queensland. Held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on 12 and 13 October, the trade show brought cooking demonstrations, suppliers and competitions into the same building. BFG attended on the final day, recording conversations and photographing the people doing the work.

There were products to sell and prizes to win. But some of the most useful things we heard were about what happens afterwards: cooking consistently, choosing technology that helps, and knowing whose knowledge goes into a dish.

Start with the people, not just the ingredient

For Woods, the Bundjalung chef behind Karkalla, using native foods was inseparable from learning about them. Her demonstration moved between the practical business of cooking and the culture attached to the ingredients.

When we spoke afterwards, her advice for chefs wanting to begin was to connect with local First Nations communities. Learn which foods belong to the area, how they are used and the stories behind them. A new ingredient on a menu was not the whole task.

Woods also spoke about bringing native foods into Australia's multicultural cooking, rather than treating them as something apart from it.

“We all deserve to see ourselves on the menus of this place,” she told BFG.

The macadamia cream gave that conversation a concrete starting point. Here was a familiar kitchen function, adding richness to a curry, approached through an Australian native ingredient. The next step, in Woods' account, was the relationship and learning that accompanied it.

What does the machine actually take off your hands?

The Botista robotic coffee display offered one answer to the automation question. Its representative described the system to BFG as a way to support existing cafés and staff. That was the supplier's pitch, not a finding from a BFG trial of the machine.

On the Business & Tech Stage, the discussion was less about the spectacle of a robot and more about the work a system leaves behind. In the automation session, speakers considered time saved on administration, but also the risk of software becoming another task for a chef to manage.

A later discussion about hospitality technology returned to how systems work together and the effort required to maintain those connections. Buying a feature was not necessarily the same as solving a problem.

These were conversations involving operators and technology businesses, not a unanimous verdict on automation. For a venue weighing up a purchase, they raised a useful question: what work will this remove, and what work will it add?

The people behind the stands

Away from the stages, the conversations became smaller and more personal.

At Alchemy Cordial Company, founder Michael described starting at Cleveland Markets in 1997, with bottle labels coloured by hand. In front of us now was an exhibitor talking through a range that included an ube concentrate.

That early detail stayed with us. A product displayed at a trade show can arrive with a polished pitch; asking its maker how it began can produce a very different picture.

Our cameras also caught the less formal side of the day: playful demonstrations at supplier stands, visitors watching the cooking, and Queensland Professional Chef of the Year head judge Jamie Gannon laughing during our interview.

Gannon's advice for a young chef was to listen. Asked about the mistakes operators make, he talked about chasing money before getting the foundations right: food, people, produce and the experience in the room. His answer extended beyond the kitchen to clean toilets, music and atmosphere.

It was a reminder that diners encounter the whole venue, not only the plate a chef sends out.

A margherita, then the medals

At the pizza competition, head judge Johnny Di Francesco drew a distinction between producing one impressive competition entry and delivering food consistently in a restaurant.

He told us the value of competing was in the experience and learning, not only the prize. Asked what he would change first in a small pizzeria under cost pressure, he went to the menu: too many items can mean more stock and more waste.

Fellow judge Stefano Spataro spoke about the mistake of assuming there is nothing left to learn. When we asked what pizza he orders to assess a pizzeria, he chose a margherita, a simple test with little room to hide.

“There's no lie behind a margherita,” he said.

Di Francesco also pointed us towards the simplest pizzas, a margherita or marinara, when judging the fundamentals. The two answers were separate conversations, but they met at the same place: start with the basics.

The afternoon brought the results. Antonio Masella of Maiori Pizzeria was named Queensland Pizza Chef of the Year 2026 and won Best Classic Pizza. Anthony Taranto of Otto Cucina won Best Creative Pizza. The titles carried $1,500 for the overall winner and $500 for each category, recorded on the cheques photographed by BFG.

We have the full pizza results in our separate report.

The awards supplied the day's clear winners. The conversations supplied something less easily ranked: advice to take back to a kitchen, a supplier to ask another question, or an ingredient to understand better before putting it on a menu. Gannon's instruction to an aspiring chef made a fitting place to start: “Listen.”