China's biggest online sale "Singles Day" triggered the rush, with many infant formula tins bought from Australian supermarkets finding their way onto internet retail platforms and sold at a handsome profit.

The infant formula shortage angered Australian parents – who demanded supermarket chains do more to safeguard their supply.

Is this the end of Australia's food security, which many Australians have taken for granted for decades, as we know it?

After all, China has one in five of the world's mouths to feed despite having less than 10 per cent of the arable land.

Higher incomes and shifting tastes have resulted in dramatic increases in meat consumption in China in recent decades, putting strain on its food-growing resources. And breakneck industrialisation and lax enforcement of environmental policies has polluted the water table and seen arable land stocks dwindle further.

But politicians, economists and some of the bosses of the biggest companies in Australia's food bowl say there should still be plenty of food to go around, considering Australian farmers already export about 60 per cent of their produce.

"This is a good thing. It shouldn't be viewed as a risk issue to Australians," said Mark Palmquist​, the chief executive of Australia's biggest agribusiness, Graincorp.

"We're not going to have an issue of supply of calories inside of Australia. All [the infant formula shortage] does is highlight that as the wealth in China, the middle class grows, that their consideration is really around quality, food safety and security."

Mr Palmquist said there were other countries, such as Russia, which could produce bulk food cheaper, therefore the opportunity for Australia means suppling niche, high quality brands to Chinese market.

"That's where Australia is going to play".

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences projects the value of food consumed in China to more than double between 2009 and 2050.

The average Chinese eats 57 kilograms of meat a year – 23 per cent more than a decade ago, but only half that of a typical Australian.

HSBC's chief economist for Australia and New Zealand, Paul Bloxham, said the opportunities to export high quality food including, dairy, red meat, sugar and edible oils were immense.

The China free trade agreement has also eliminated or gradually reduced a number of key tariffs on a number of key Australian exports, like beef, lamb, dairy and seafood. And it has agreed key protocols that pave the way for Australia to begin live feeder and slaughter cattle exports.

But Mr Bloxham said Australia needed to build its food production capacity to seize these opportunities and not jeopardise its own supplies.

"That should be possible," he said. "In terms of the dairy space, the great example is New Zealand with their large capacity to be able to provide dairy products fairly rapidly in the years following the signing of their free trade agreement with China [in 2008]," Mr Bloxham said.

"Dairy exports went from about 5 per cent of their exports, to a peak of about 30 per cent of their exports over a short period of time."

Companies are already reshaping their business to meet the Asian demand. Despite the recent infant formula shortage, a2 Milk Australia chief executive Peter Nathan said the company had "significantly ramped" up supply for the domestic market, with sales of its infant formula on track to treble this year.

The trans-Tasman company is also exploring longer term solutions such as engaging and Australian milk processor to produce its Platinum infant formula – which is produced by Synlait in New Zealand – under contract or build its own Australian factory to complement its agreement with Synlait.

"It's a strong commercial opportunity," Mr Nathan said.

Another reason why there should be enough food to go around is that China has not exactly flung open its doors to overseas imports of fresh food and agricultural produce. Market access, particularly with fresh fruit and vegetables, is still heavily restricted by quarantine and other regulatory protocols.

It has often claimed to be worried about the effect of importing more Australian produce on local farmers, a stance viewed as a negotiating tactic for quid pro quo access. (Australia, incidentally, is renowned for having some of the strictest access standards worldwide).

"There's a market here [in China] but even with a free trade agreement the market for fresh food is controlled by how much [China] allows in and it ends up to some extent being political," says Philippa Jones, managing director of Beijing-based research house China Policy.

It is why Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has constantly refuted suggestions Australia could ever become the "food bowl of Asia".

"We couldn't even flood Beijing and Shanghai with agricultural product let alone the whole of China," he told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.

"What Australia can do, and what we will continue to do, is provide China with high-quality agricultural products – many of which will be further processed in China, targeted at the high-end of the market, or are counter-seasonal."

Even in areas where Chinese have allowed access, Australian producers face keen competition from growers worldwide and have had to differentiate.

Brazil, for example, is providing stiff competition at the lower-end market of frozen and chilled beef.

"The market certainly been reasonably steady where this time of year you'd expect to be increasing with the ramp up toward Chinese New Year – that hasn't happened," says Tim Sullivan of Sanger Australia.

"But what's happening is it's clear that the Chinese consumers are happy to pay a premium for our higher-end steer and grain-fed product because they've got a taste for it, and Brazil doesn't offer that."

A recent report by PwC asserts that self-sufficiency is "no longer a practical policy goal" for China, with the government's priorities shifting towards high-value crops, such as fruits and vegetables, and a focus on quality and food safety.

Simultaneously, China is venturing overseas, including in Australia, to bolster its food security though investments in foreign farmland and the acquisition of companies across the food chain.

"This is where the global impact of China's increasing food needs will be felt most acutely," it says.

But Senator Richard Colbeck, the Assistant Trade Minister, sees it a different way.

"We have got about 130,000 farmers. We could feed ourselves with about 30,000, so we need trade, probably more than other country to make sure they all have viable businesses.

"That's the rationale of the government's approach to trade; providing alternative markets to the Australian market because in some circumstances we produce a lot more than we can utilise on the local market and if we then try to sell it all here, that's what really depresses prices for farmers.

"So here's an opportunity for farmers to get a decent return."