NSA SA Branch Annual Dinner - Beyond Ultra-Processed Foods

The Nutrition Society of Australia Adelaide Group is pleased to invite you to our 2026 Annual Nutrition Dinner, hosted at Fettle on 19 November.

The Annual Dinner is the flagship event for the Adelaide Branch of the Nutrition Society of Australia. This year's theme is Beyond Ultra Processed Foods: Untangling the science, the messaging and what matters for healthy eating.

Join us for a delicious three-course meal, accompanied by thought-provoking discussion and the latest nutrition science. Our expert speakers will explore the growing conversation around ultra-processed foods, examining the evidence behind the headlines, the complexities of modern food classification systems, and the practical implications for healthy eating. Together, we will unpack what we know, what remains uncertain, and how nutrition professionals can help navigate this rapidly evolving area of public interest and debate.

We look forward to sharing an engaging evening of great food, networking, and insightful discussion with you.

Our Speakers -

Associate Professor Phil Baker

Phil is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Horizon Fellow at the School of Public Health. He received his PhD in population health from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University. His research focuses on understanding global food systems change and the implications for human and planetary health, with particular focus on the commercial determinants of health and the political economy of food systems. His recent work examines the commercial determinants behind the rise of ultra-processed foods in human diets, governance and regulation for healthy and sustainable food systems, and the political economy of infant and young child feeding. He has worked closely with the United Nations food and nutrition agencies on these topics, including leadership of multi-year WHO projects, and as a technical adviser to UNICEF on child nutrition. Phil is a former Independent Expert Group member of the Global Nutrition Report, a fellow of the Lancet Obesity Commission, and of WHO’s proposed ultra-processed food guidelines group. He co-led the 2025 Lancet Series on Ultra-processed Foods and Human Health and co-leads the Ultra-processed Food Research Action Network.

Associate Professor Yohannes Adama Melaku

Yohannes is a nutritional epidemiologist at Flinders University and an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow. He leads research at the intersection of nutrition, sleep and chronic disease, with particular expertise in causal inference and advanced epidemiological analysis. His recent research has focused extensively on ultra-processed foods and their associations with fertility, cognitive, mental health and sleep outcomes. A central theme of this work is improving the methodological rigour of ultra-processed food research, including addressing challenges in exposure classification, confounding, substitution analyses, heterogeneity across food groups and causal interpretation. Yohannes has led and contributed to several epidemiological studies and evidence syntheses on ultra-processed foods and chronic disease. His broader research aims to move beyond simple associations and generate more credible, actionable evidence that can inform dietary guidance, prevention strategies and public health policy.