Learning first hand from Aboriginal Communities and hearing their stories, I realized there was a big problem in the native food industry.
Low quality, corporate food manufacturers were preying on consumers by offering a bushfood flavoured product than contained 0.01% of native ingredients -
How could you even taste that?
It got worse the more I dug. Even the wholesale suppliers of these ingredients stored them for years-on-end due to the seasonality of bushfood, leading to a flavourless, dull, poor quality ingredient.
How could a 21 year old even fight such an industry?!
I decided to form partnerships instead. That's where we found a vast network of Aboriginal Enterprises, Wild Harvesters, and Small Farmers who had the same passion and love for native ingredients I had.
They have the respect, kindness to Country and drive for an ethical industry, so we started to work together.
Understanding the importance of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, we knew we didn't want a business that's sole focus was on profits.
We wanted an enterprise that gave back social benefits to the producers we worked with - and that's where the idea for Melbourne Bushfood came from.