The Orana Foundation, which is founded and chaired by Jock Zonfrillo, has today launched its Indigenous Food Database, a categorical archive of 1,443 ingredients commonly used by Indigenous communities across Australia.

The database, which was collated in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, includes detailed information on culturally-significant plants, both native and introduced, from their nutritional content to medicinal uses, flavour profiles and potential culinary and commercial uses. It also includes maps of where these ingredients may be found in Australia.

The collection of data serves two main purposes. It allows the information to be recorded for the benefit of future generations and it also allows this information to be sold for commercial purposes.

Jock Zonfrillo said: “What I kept hearing over the past two decades working on country with Elders was that they wanted to proudly share their traditional knowledge but were conflicted. They felt that it was one of the few things they had left that hadn’t been taken away from them.

“How could they preserve their knowledge in a modern way for future generations that is both safe and secure? And how can we ensure that they don’t get cut out of any benefit in the future?”

The Indigenous Food Database has taken three long years to complete. “There’s a real sense of urgency to get the job done,” Zonfrillo said. “Whether it’s because as Elders pass on their knowledge is lost or because the Indigenous knowledge has been taken out of their hands and grown overseas with no benefit or acknowledgment flowing back to them. We have seen this time and time again from sandalwood to wattleseed.”

The database’s findings are currently with Indigenous intellectual property lawyers in Australia to ensure all ethical research obligations are met and Indigenous Cultural and IP protocols have been followed. Once this is established, the Orana Foundation will hand over control of the database to an Indigenous entity, which will be the custodian of the database moving forward.

The yet-to-be-confirmed custodian will decide who is granted access to the information and who is not.

“It has always been our intention for Indigenous people to decide where to go from here,” Zonfrillo said. “It could be a time capsule for traditional knowledge, it could be used by schools for education, it could be commercialised. Whatever the future of the database is, it will be decided by Indigenous people in a time and manner that they wish.”

In recent years, native Australian ingredients such as Kakadu plum, quandong lilly pilly, have become highly sought after superfoods by major international health and beauty brands. Information on how to extract their vitamins and minerals, or how to get the most out of them flavour-wise, would be extremely valuable to such companies.

Being half-Scottish and half-Italian, Jock admits he’s an unlikely poster child for the cause. “I get asked a lot why a white guy that was born in Scotland would want to work in this space, but, to sum it up simply, it’s because it felt important to me and it felt unfair to me that Indigenous Australians were not being given the acknowledgment worthy of the world’s oldest civilisation,” he said.

“The only way to do this is to start the conversation and be open to listening. I think if everyone approaches this with an open mind and an open heart – and we’re ready to listen, learn and share – I think that’s the best place to start.”