Mindy Woods

Standing barefoot on Bundjalung Country, I’m reminded of what my ancestors always knew: food is culture. It’s kinship, balance, generosity and connection to Country. Yet today, most Australians are unaware of how to cook with native foods. If they do, it’s often as garnish – a sprinkle of wattleseed, rather than the backbone of our national cuisine.

Australia’s bush food industry was valued at around $81.5 million in 2019–2020 and is estimated to be worth twice that today. Meanwhile, less than two per cent of the product is sourced from Aboriginal growers and suppliers. That means 98 cents of every dollar spent on bush foods never reach the communities that have cared for these ingredients for 65,000 years.

This is more than just a missed economic opportunity and an extractive mindset. It’s a continuation of colonisation, just in another form. Australian businesses are benefiting from Indigenous knowledge without Indigenous leadership or sovereignty.

The absence of this knowledge isn’t accidental. It reflects a broader underrepresentation of Indigenous culture in the mainstream Australian story.

For generations, Aboriginal people were actively excluded from our food systems. Native ingredients were dismissed as inferior, access to Country was restricted, and cultural practices were disrupted.

Today, many Australians have still never tasted lilly pilly or cooked with lemon myrtle. They’ve never learnt that First Nations Australians were the world’s first bakers, grinding native seeds into flour tens of thousands of years ago, or that Indigenous aquaculture systems – like the Budj Bim eel traps in Gunditjmara Country – are some of the oldest known anywhere on earth.

Our celebrated multicultural food scene – with its pho, falafel and curry as good as you’d find overseas – has become a point of national pride. Yet the flavours that are oldest, the ones grown and shared on this continent for millennia, remain missing from most supermarket shelves, and are rarely witnessed on our menus and dinner tables.

True inclusion means embedding native foods at the centre of our national cuisine. When those native foods are embraced with integrity, they do more than delight the palate. But if they’re exploited without Indigenous voices, they risk becoming tokens stripped of meaning and sovereignty.

Now is our chance to stand together – to move beyond tokenism towards true integration of native foods into Australian cuisine and build something we can all be proud of. Why? Because I believe Australians are ready. Diners have never been more curious, adventurous, or hungry for authenticity. The idea that Australia’s national cuisine could finally reflect its oldest culture is so inspiring.

If you work in food or hospitality, this is your invitation to invest in Indigenous businesses and buy directly from First Nations growers to create partnerships that share ownership and profits – not just inform marketing slogans.

If you’re a consumer, you have the power to:

• Learn to cook with native ingredients, just as you’d learn to use basil or cumin. You can source these from First Nations businesses including Black Duck Foods, Indigigrow and Bush to Bowl.

• Support Indigenous-owned brands and restaurants.

• Treat native foods as everyday, not exotic.

I dream of an Australia where native foods are as common as parsley or pepper. While the challenges are real, there’s also hope in the quiet revolution happening around the country. First Nations chefs, growers and food advocates are leading the way. From small farms supplying native herbs to school programs teaching kids how to cook with bush foods, Australia’s national cuisine is being rewritten.

I wish every Australian could experience the moments I grew up with, packing cousins into the car, heading to the beach and digging for yugari (pipi) with sun-warmed hands. We’d cook pipi curry over the fire, share rock oysters straight from the tidal rocks, and laugh until our bellies ached. Each taste, each laugh, each connection to Country carries a story, a rhythm of life and belonging that has nourished our people for millennia.

By 2050, we could be telling a story where every heritage is celebrated, with First Nations food and culture anchoring the identity of modern Australian dining. The question isn’t just whether we’ll join this movement – it’s whether we’ll be proud of the story we’re telling when the next generation sits down to eat.

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