In the hot desert of Central Australia, a bush tomato is carefully plucked by a woman who chats with her friends as they scour the landscape for the fruit, which grows wild in that region. In an area as far north as the Tanami desert and as far west as Western Australia, more than 200 women representing about 25 indigenous communities take part in a traditional activity that’s just as much about socialising as it is harvesting. 

Few people realise these tomatoes end up in ketchups and chutneys at Coles supermarkets. They are one of many bush foods – including Kakadu plums, wild limes and wild rosella flowers – which make their way from the outback into supermarket trolleys around Australia.

It’s an initiative that began when Chris Mara, Coles Myer’s Adviser on Government Affairs, had a chance encounter with bush foods advocate Juleigh Robins.  Juleigh, along with her partner Ian Robins, founded Robins Foods – a Melbourne-based procurer, manufacturer and marketer of Australian native food products. 

Mara had already considered procuring food such as mangoes and avocadoes from indigenous communities but the high set-up costs and distance to markets meant the concept was not commercially viable.

Taking bush tucker mainstream

Working with a company like Robins – which already had procurement systems and established relationships with communities in place – meant there was potential for Coles to help make bush foods part of mainstream grocery shopping.

After some market research, Coles partnered with three companies – one of which was Robins.  By early 2000, there were 40 bush food products in 120 Coles stores.

Typically, indigenous communities wild harvest bush food, but increasingly bush foods are being cultivated to meet commercial demand. Once harvested the food is transported to centralised cooperatives and procured by companies such as Robins, which markets the products under the Outback Spirit brand in Coles. Centralised cooperatives currently exist in Central Australia, the Top End, Far North Queensland and the southern states. Each region specialises in bush foods native to the area. 

Robins has played an integral part in setting up a reliable and fair trade supply chain. It spearheaded the creation of a not-for-profit company, Indigenous Australian Foods (IAF), designed to procure the food.IAF is an Aboriginal owned and controlled entity representing members in the Central Desert, Arnhem Land, Far North Queensland, NSW and Victoria. IAF offers equity to members – who are typically the indigenous communities who source the food. “The supply comes from the members themselves,” says Juleigh Robins. “And the benefits go back to the members. Robins pays a good and fair price for the crops so this means the communities receive a good cash income during the harvest period. Additionally we also pay a further 10% above the farm gate price to IAF as an endorsement fee.”

Apart from selling the products, Coles also set up the Coles Indigenous Food Fund, which it founded with an initial cash injection of A$20,000. A further A$0.30 from each product sold is donated to the fund – A$0.25 from Coles and A$0.05 from suppliers like Robins.

Providing equipment to help communities

“Money from the fund is used to provide communities with storage and equipment, such as roasting ovens, cleaning and grinding machines and refrigerated containers,” says Mara. “Purchasing this equipment helps communities add value, provide certainty of supply for people like Robins and Coles, and certainty of income for the people in the communities.”

The vagaries of supply and demand impacted the bush food products stocked by Coles. By 2004, the product line had shrunk to 16.“We stuck with the best sellers,” says Mara. But the range was also expanded to over 500 stores. One of the three suppliers also stopped making the products.

Now, two brands, Outback Spirit and Red Ochre –which together represent over 90% of the processed native foods sold in Australia supply about 25 different items in more than 700 Coles. Bush foods stocked by Coles include tomato chutney, wild lime chilli ginger sauce, and mango native mint dry marinade. Retail turnover has gone from A$350,000 in 2000-2001 to about A$1 million in 2005-2006.

Robins says Coles’s involvement has been a catalyst for the development of the bush foods industry. “We couldn’t possibly be where we are now without Coles,” says Robins. “To make this work, you need demand in the marketplace and that is hard to create.”

Mara says Coles is trying to boost demand with in-store tastings, promotions and greater awareness through the likes of Cathy Freemen’s involvement with Outback Spirit. Freeman is now an ambassador for the brand. When tastings in 80 stores occurred in 2006, sales of the bush foods tripled.

Apart from the obvious economic and financial benefits to communities, Robins says there are outcomes that can’t be quantified. “A couple of traditional Aboriginal women came up to me and told me they love going into Coles because they can stand there and see their products on the shelves. And they know they’re a part of making that happen.”

www.coles.com.au