Taking tea and chocolates to the world

Peninsula food entrepreneur Sharon Brindley has added another story to her amazing food journey: in the first weeks of 2023 she’s been a delegate on two Aboriginal international trade missions promoting Indigenous products.

Sharon was in Aotearoa New Zealand in February on a trade mission to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) organised by Global Victoria and the Aboriginal Economic Development group. In early March she went to the US with a select group of Indigenous food entrepreneurs to wow the Americans with unique products showcasing the flavours of Australia. They spent a week at the massive Natural Expo West in Anaheim, California, and presented Australian Indigenous coffee, tea and giftware to the huge US market.

“It takes two days just to walk past every exhibitor,” Sharon said with a laugh just before flying out. “About 65,000 people will likely attend and there’s a buyer audience of 40,000.” Sharon’s Capel Sound-based business Jala Jala Treats took four types of chocolate infused with native Australian plant flavours, and six kinds of native tea.

The Yamatji Noongar woman from Western Australia grew up on Bunurong country of the Mornington Peninsula but often returned to Kalgoorlie and stayed with her grandmother, who taught her how to live off the land and gave her a love of cooking and knowledge of Indigenous ingredients and native flavours.

Sharon is best known for starting Cooee Café and Catering in Rosebud’s light industrial area in 2017, the Peninsula’s only Indigenous café and one of three in greater Melbourne. The kitchen supplied the café, naturally, as well as government, large corporates, smaller business and private clients across the Peninsula, Melbourne CBD and surrounds.

In 2020 Sharon launched wholesale supply business Jala Jala Treats after closing the café and catering businesses. “We survived pandemic lockdowns but then finding staff became a problem,” she said.

Sharon is bravely honest in saying she started her catering journey with Shaz’s takeaway in Rosebud as a way of dragging herself out of depression and anxiety. “I had to find a way to confront my inner demons.”

She failed English in Year 10. “Later I applied in writing for a business grant but was rejected. I spoke to one of the referees over the phone and told them what I wanted to do and they said, ‘Why didn’t you put that in your application?’ I said, ‘I can’t write!’”

Turns out Sharon is a wonderful talker – and it’s this skill plus her vision for taking Indigenous products to the world that is much in demand nowadays. She says the trade trip to New Zealand has enabled Jala Jala Treats to start modestly and now her sights are set on the huge American market.

Sharon sources products from and works closely with Indigenous companies in Melbourne and Geelong. Jala Jala also offers Aboriginal herbs and spices, coffee, jams and sauces. The chocolate recipes are Sharon’s. Unlike many flavoured chocolates that are only coated, Jala Jala’s are infused – blended into the mixture with a $70,000 infusing machine she bought.

Jala Jala Treats product packs feature a green turtle, Sharon’s totem. Jala Jala means “very good” in the Wajarri language, spoken by the people who once lived on the Murchison River in central WA.

Sharon is Victorian director of the recently formed First Nations Bushfood & Botanical Alliance, an advocacy and economic development group of First Nations people and businesses that aims to ensure the development of a thriving Indigenous bush foods and botanicals business sector. “It’s a passion project – very important to protect First Nations knowledge of bush foods and products.”