ANSTO highlighted its food origin research with live shows and an expert panel discussion to showcase Australian science in the Australia Pavilion at the Expo 2025 Osaka from 8-10 October.
Thousands of visitors, the majority of whom were Japanese, visited the Australian Pavilion every day. Japanese subtitles were used throughout the show.
"It was an outstanding opportunity for ANSTO to showcase used nuclear and other scientific techniques to tackle a real-world challenge, determining the origin of food with great certainty to benefit consumers, government and industry", said CEO Shaun Jenkinson.
"We were one of a select group of science organisations and representatives from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, who contributed to the Australian Pavilion."
Live Show
The highly engaging live 23-minute show, in the format of a Japanese TV game show, entertained the largely Japanese crowd with plenty of opportunities for audience participation. Hosted by Bridget Murphy and Sarah Tyler from ANSTO's education team, onlookers learned about ANSTO's food provenance technology via fun challenges, including "Guess the word", "Where does the sushi come from", "Build the environmental fingerprint pattern" and "True and False".
The two contestants - a food critic (played by Leah Mitchell) and a scientist (Dr Debashish Mazumder) - battled to guess where the sushi came from. The food critic's special skills were no match for Dr Mazumder's portable X-ray fluorescence scanner technology. To the delight of the Japanese audience, Dr Mazumder confirmed the sushi was indeed from Japan.
The show was brought to life with several videos on the background screen, including a special animation based on the painting of Indigenous artist Linday Clarke with animation by Griffith Film School student Helena Cartner, explored the concept of Country. Two other videos explained x-ray technology and the importance of food origin, and the game show hosts interacted with a giant animated talking fish, Kai the Koi.
The Pavilion estimated that they had 15,000 visitors per day. About 200,000 people a day entered the Expo and more than 28 million people attended the event which was held from May through October.
The content of the show and technical production was coordinated by Ms Susan Bogle, Senior Science Communications Manager at ANSTO. Curating the content for this show required care to ensure it was culturally appropriate, entertaining and effective communication for a Japanese audience.
Two Japanese collaborators, Dr Takeshi Iimoto from the University of Tokyo and Ms Yoko Nara from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, provided advice on science outreach in Japan. They both attended the shows and congratulated ANSTO on the performances, which they described as engaging and entertaining.
ANSTO distributed its Periodic Table of the Elements with a version in Japanese on the flip side to those who watched the shows. The artwork for the table, developed by ANSTO's creative director Karl Mutimer, used the Australia Pavilion logo and colour scheme.
Expert Panel VIP Event
About 40 guests, including major Japanese and Australian government and industry stakeholders, attended the expert panel VIP networking event in a function room in the Pavilion.
The discussion focused on the challenges of determining the origin of food, the approach developed by ANSTO to authenticate origin, country of labelling requirements, and industry and government perspectives.
The Commissioner -General for Australia World Expo Osaka Kansai the Expo Osaka 2025, Nancy Gordon, welcomed guests to the event. Simultaneous translation was available in English and Japanese for guests and panel members.
Prof Jesmond Sammut, Deputy Dean, External Engagement, Leader, UNSW Aquaculture Research Group, Honorary Research Fellow ANSTO and Deputy Director (International), Centre for Marine Science and Innovation acted as a moderator for the panel discussion.
The University of NSW is one of ANSTO's major collaborators on seafood research, providing students and expert advice.
Panel members included Dr Debashish Mazumder, Leader, Food Provenance, ANSTO; Dr Masayuki Komatsu, Chairman Institute of Ecosystem Research Japan; Dr Yaeko Suzuki, of the Bioactive Compounds Team, Advanced Analysis Center, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO); and Mr Yasuharu Takashima. a Director at the Food and Agricultural Materials Inspection Center (FAMIC).
ANSTO shared a video that explored the science of food origin developed at ANSTO, including the adaptation of a portable X-ray fluorescence scanner for field or marketplace assessments and the extent of food fraud as a global issue.
Ms Leah Mitchell, a senior government advisor at ANSTO, acted as emcee for the event.
Dr Mazumder hopes to share the approach with Japanese and other collaborators in with academia, industry and government to enhance database resources.
The Australian Government provided the funding for ANSTO to participate in the Expo.
