palawa kipli releases nine-spice mix

Tasmanian indigenous food company palawa kipli has released its first product.

Having spent the last six years providing catering and education around Aboriginal food, the business has unveiled its nine-spice mix.

The product is made up of kunzea (tinputina), pepperberry (tapu), wattleseed (wurayni), salt bush (taytina), lutruwita kelp (rikawa), lutruwita sea salt, river mint, sea parsley, and round leaf mint bush.

The ingredients have been used by Tasmanian indigenous people for centuries and were sourced from different farms across the state.

The spices represent the nine different nations that made up Tasmania before colonisation.
palawa kipli is run by Kitana Mansell and is 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned.

“As a palawa woman running a palawa food business, it’s always been a big barrier for Aboriginal people to access our traditional foods and to sell, harvest and grow them,” Ms Mansell said.

“But I’ve always wanted to have a product that tells the truthful stories of our people.”

Ms Mansell said the nine-spice mix was the first bush food product in Tasmania to be produced by an Aboriginal-owned and operated business.

“It’s always been my goal to continuously be at the forefront of an industry that our people created, and for a bush food to represent palawa country and palawa people.”

The product was made in collaboration with health and wellness company Zea.

“We reached out to them saying that we would love to work with them to do the right thing as a non-Aboriginal business that is selling our traditional foods and not giving back to community,” Ms Mansell said.

“The outcome was that we were going to collaborate on the product, and they helped with all the back-end work to get the product label organised and make sure it met food standards.”

The nine-spice mix has so far had a limited release of 500, of which around 200 are left.

“We’ve only sold them at three events in one week, so there’s massive demand for them,” Ms Mansell said.

Palawa kipli was started by Ms Mansell’s cousin, Tim Sculthorpe, in 2018, before the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre bought the business from him a year later, after he moved to New South Wales.

The TAC then hired Ms Mansell to run the business.