Motlop family take lead in South Australia to promote growing, using, intellectual property rights of native foods
Marlon Motlop with Damien Manno, founder of Quality Harvest herbs at Kulda, north of Adelaide, looking at produce from the joint Native Foods venture with the Motlop family. Top right: Daniel Motlop, who was general manager of the other Motlop native food and bushtucker venture, Something Wild, and one his recommended dishes: chilli crabs.
Main image by Kerry Straight, Landline, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) television.
The Motlop family, including former Australian Football League players Daniel and Marlon, were at the front of a South Australian push to promote growing and using native foods.
The Motlops started their native foods and bushtucker venture with a majority chare of Something Wild Australia from 2016, with Daniel Motlop as general manager plus brothers Steven and Shannon having a hands-on role. Specialising in game meats, including kangaroo, wild boar, venison, camel, buffalo, crocodile and goat, and specialty native greens (such as karkalla and samphire), seasonal fruits, herbs and spices,
Something Wild supplied Indigenous and bushtucker food to restaurants and consumers around Australia. It also had a shopfront presence at the Adelaide Central Market.
Former Port Adelaide player Daniel Motlop said his interest in food stemmed from hunting magpie geese as a chid: “Food is a big part of Aboriginal culture and brings people together through ceremony. We are trying to introduce these native ingredients and show people that there are a lot of products you can use at home in terms of the greens, and great produce that people have never been able to get before.”
To supply their native food year round in controlled conditions, the Motlops formed a company called Native Foods with Quality Harvest herb growers, founded by Damien Manno at Kulda, north of Adelaide. Another Motltop brother, Marlon, also a former AFL footballer and musician, came on board for this venture.
Marlon Motlop said the native plants had adjusted well to being grown inside at Quality Harvest and, while they weren’t as potent as in the wild, they still “packed a punch” in aromas: "Australian natives have a way of just taking off wherever they go. They act like weeds in some aspects." Quality Harvest, previously dominated by Mediterranean herbs, had taken on a distinctly Australian flavour, growing everything from native basil, river mint and sea parsley to succulents such as karkalla and warrigal greens.
Motlop in 2022 became the first Indigenous person to be awarded an agricultural scholarship from Nuffield Australia to travel the world looking at the intellectual property rights of crops. He said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia needed to be acknowledged and respected in the right way for commercialising Australian native produce and protecting intellectual property of each product. "You look at the macadamia nut, for instance, that's an Australian native product that has been commercialised by the Americans. So there's a lost opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities." Lemon myrtle was another example: "One of the biggest suppliers in the world is not even based in Australia."