Australia’s native food industry has received a boost – with Indigenous-owned Cooee Foods Australia acquiring native ingredients suppliers, Creative Native Foods – placing it under First Nations ownership for the first time in its 25 years.
Founded in January 2001 by acclaimed chef and author Andrew Fielke, Creative Native Foods has helped introduce Australian native ingredients to fine dining and food tourism across the country.
The company’s range spans raw native ingredients including Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, wattleseed and lemon myrtle, through to chef developed products such as spice blends, chutneys, native infused salamis and ready to use curry pastes.
The Adelaide based business has supplied native ingredients and chef developed products to iconic tourism operators including The Ghan and Indian Pacific trains, Outback Spirit Tours, Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia and SeaLink ferries. Its customer list includes Attica, Botanic, Mid’n by Mark Olive, Maiden, Archie Rose Distilling Co, Coco Black Chocolate, Compass Group and Unilever.
Fielke will remain with the business as a consultant, focusing on product development and culinary innovation.
Cooee Foods Australia will support the expansion of Creative Native Foods, bringing national scale, distribution capability and brand momentum, while strengthening opportunities for Aboriginal growers and suppliers across the native food supply chain.
Founded by Wiradjuri entrepreneur Terri-Ann Daniel, Cooee has evolved from kitchen bench baking into a multi category food business with allergen friendly products, sold across Ampol Foodary, Woolworths Metro, IGA, Spar QLD, and Metcash stores.
The business produces more than 90,000 cookies a month from a dedicated peanut free facility in Melbourne. Its Cooee Cookies recently landed a distribution partnership with functional ingredient leaders, Health Food Symmetry (HFS), to create a new range of prebiotic cookies.
Daniel said she was on a mission to build a native food movement.
“Right now, when you buy something off the shelf with Kakadu plum or wattleseed in it, less than two per cent of those products are Indigenous owned. We’re changing that,” said Daniel.
“Andrew has spent decades putting native ingredients in front of the best chefs in the country. Without businesses like Creative Native Foods, there is no circular economy of growing, harvesting and transforming these incredible foods.”
Beyond commercial growth, the acquisition is driven by a desire to protect Australian native foods from global appropriation.
“Macadamia became a Hawaiian industry. Lemon myrtle is now grown overseas. Finger lime is cultivated globally, with some even claiming it’s native elsewhere,” said Fielke.
“We need to take ownership of what belongs on Australian plates. This is the right next chapter for the business and for native foods more broadly. It’s incredibly meaningful to see Creative Native Foods transition to Indigenous ownership.”
Daniel stated she was laying the groundwork for a cooperative model to help Aboriginal growers scale sustainably and ensure economic benefits increasingly flow back to Indigenous communities.
Creative Native Foods will continue to trade under its existing name for food service clients, with future retail brand development under consideration as part of a broader growth strategy.
