Cooee Native Superfoods will be the exclusive Indigenous supplier to Qantas on domestic routes during Reconciliation Week which starts from tomorrow.
An Indigenous-owned business founded in 2023 by Wiradjuri woman Terri-Anne “Tezzi” Daniel, Cooee will supply around 150,000 Nan’s Jam Drops, featuring Davidson Plum, for Qantas domestic flights during National Reconciliation Week from 27 May to 3 June.
Cooee recently acquired Adelaide-based Creative Native Foods, one of Australia’s largest native ingredients suppliers, which services major hospitality, food service and tourism businesses, including Journey Beyond.
It is the first time in that company’s 25-year history that it is Indigenous-owned with the acquisition expanding Cooee’s grower network and strengthening Indigenous participation across the native food supply chain.
Cooee’s retail footprint now includes Qantas domestic flights, Woolworths Metro, Ampol Foodary, Drakes Supermarkets, Foodland, SPAR and selected IGA stores. The brand is stocked nationally and continues to grow.
South Australia has become a key part of Cooee’s operation. Native ingredients including salt bush, wattleseed, coastal rosemary, quandong and muntries are sourced and processed there, and the brand’s retail presence in the state continues to expand, with products now stocked across Drakes, Foodland and IGA Supermarkets statewide.
“Native foods come from Country,” Daniel said. “They carry tens of thousands of years of knowledge. For us, Indigenous ownership of this business is about making sure that knowledge is respected and that the value it generates flows in the right direction.”
All In
With the National Reconciliation Week 2026 theme of All In, passengers are being asked to commit to reconciliation not just during this week, but every day.
For Cooee Native Superfoods, that commitment has a tangible form of the 150,000 Nan’s Jam Drops, made with Davidson Plum, that will be served aboard Qantas domestic flights as the national carrier’s exclusive Indigenous food supplier.
Daniel said the significance goes beyond the commercial. Getting onto Qantas required building a business capable of supplying at scale, with consistency and reliability. That work is now paying off in a way that is visible to the whole country.
“Every time someone picks up one of our cookies on a Qantas flight, that is reconciliation happening. Not in a boardroom. At 30,000 feet, flying across Country,” she said.
“We are a business. We need to be commercially strong to do any of the things that matter to us. Qantas backing us, and the retailers who have come on board, that is what makes the rest possible. The goal is an industry where Indigenous people are running the table, not just sitting at it.”
National Reconciliation Week, from 27 May to 3 June each year, mark two milestones in Australia’s history: the 1967 referendum and the 1992 Mabo decision. This year also marks the 25th anniversary of Reconciliation Australia.
