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Disruptive technologies are helping leading manufacturers to boost productivity, attract and engage new consumers, inspire new market strategies and drive substantial business growth. Here's our pick of disruptive technologies to watch:

Drones: Deutsche Post, the world's biggest courier company, is using a drone to deliver medication to a remote German island. It’s been such a success the company is considering using the “parcelcopter” to make more regular deliveries.

‘Mobile-geddon’: mobile devices are making waves in the business world: think service delivery, worker productivity and customer experience.

Distributed manufacturing: is where the final product is manufactured near the final customer, so the raw materials, assembly and product fabrication are decentralised, potentially increasing customisation.

Advanced robotics: including human-machine collaboration.

Emergent Artificial Intelligence: is where machines can learn automatically by taking on large volumes of information; it has huge implications for productivity.

Self-driving vehicles: that could potentially move or distribute goods.

Internet of Things: has massive potential for business process optimisation, reduced downtime and waste, and increased quality overall.

Find out more about these disruptive technologies by reading the full story here.

Food & Drink Business

The livestock cycle is about to do something Global AgriTrends' Simon Quilty has never seen before, and the consequences run well past the saleyard. Several of the world’s major cattle producing countries are rebuilding at the same time, Australia is entering its own rebuild, and the sheep flock has already passed its tipping point. For anyone whose raw material is an animal, the next three years are the tight part of the cycle.

Companies developing the next generation of food, ingredients and biomanufacturing now have access to a food-grade pilot-scale precision fermentation facility in Australia.

Synlait Milk has reported a $75.4 million net loss for FY26, but a return to operational stability in the second half delivered a sharp improvement in earnings as the dairy processor continued its turnaround.