History of the bushfood industry facts for kids

The Australian native food industry, also known as the bushfood industry, is all about using plants and animals native to Australia for food. For thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have gathered these foods, known as bush tucker, and used native plants for bush medicine. The modern bushfood industry started growing in the 1970s and early 1980s. This is when people began to see the potential of these unique Australian foods for commercial use.

How the Industry Started

In the mid-1970s, a person named Brian Powell saw that the fruit of the quandong tree could be grown and sold. He started planting quandong orchards. Soon after, the CSIRO, a big science agency in Australia, began researching quandongs too.

Around the late 1970s, Peter Hardwick started looking into native plants from subtropical areas that could be grown for food. He chose fruits like riberry and Davidsonia. Later, he also looked at leaf-spices such as lemon myrtle, Aniseed myrtle, and Dorrigo Pepper. Hardwick focused on plants with strong flavors that could be processed into different products. This idea became a key strategy for the whole industry. In the 1980s, Hardwick worked with Dr. Ian Southwell, a researcher who studied essential oils. Dr. Southwell helped identify the unique smells and flavors of many popular native spices.

Growing the Bushfood Movement

In 1983, the University of Sydney's Human Nutrition Unit, led by Jennie Brand-Miller, started studying the nutritional value of bushfoods. This was important for understanding how these foods could help the health of Aboriginal people. Vic Cherikoff, who was part of this team, then started a company to sell native Australian ingredients to businesses. Cherikoff was very important in connecting the research on bushfoods with restaurants and food companies. He also helped write books like Bush Food and wrote his own, The Bushfood Handbook and Uniquely Australian, A wildfood cookbook. These books helped introduce the public to this new industry.

Bushfood in Restaurants and Stores

In the mid-1980s, several restaurants in Sydney opened that focused on Australian ingredients. These included Rowntrees: The Australian Restaurant, run by Chef Jean-Paul Bruneteau and Jenny Dowling. Later, in 1996, Bruneteau, Dowling, and Cherikoff opened another restaurant called Riberries – Taste Australia. Edna’s Table restaurant, run by Chef Raymond Kersh and Jennice Kersh, also opened. In the early 1990s, the Red Ochre Grill opened in Adelaide with Andrew Fielke as its chef. Fielke also helped start a production company called Australian Native Produce Industries (ANPI).

Around the late 1980s, companies started making "value-added" products. This means they took raw native ingredients and turned them into things like sauces, jams, and dried spices to sell in regular stores. Ian and Juleigh Robbins created a line of these products through their company, Robin's Foods Pty Ltd. Making these special jams, sauces, and drinks has become a big part of how native foods are developed in different regions.

Expanding and Looking Ahead

Small-scale farming of native food plants began in the late 1980s, especially in northern New South Wales. In 1994, the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Greening Australia held a conference near Lismore to discuss growing bushfoods. The industry also aimed to promote native foods during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Different groups were formed to represent the farmers who grew these native foods. Government agencies also became more involved in developing new native crops. For example, Dr. Stephen Sykes, a researcher at CSIRO, created new types of native Citrus fruits, which became available through ANPI.

Since the year 2000, the industry has continued to grow stronger. More native produce is being sold overseas, and the ways of growing and processing these foods are becoming more advanced to meet demand. Some new products have been introduced, such as Finger Lime, mintbush, and Eucalyptus olida. While fewer new native food plants are being introduced now compared to the 1980s, the sale of herb and spice mixes, fruit blends, and special extracts has increased. This could lead the industry into even bigger markets in the future.

Some native crops, like lemon myrtle, were first known for food but are now also used to make essential oils and cosmetics.