Hope Vale Foundation has secured $500,000 towards its venture to commercialise the native giant freshwater prawn for the first time in Australia. Photo: Supplied.
A First Nations-led organisation tackling remote food insecurity and a global protein supply gap has been announced as one of four Queensland producers sharing in a $2 million sustainability and innovation fund.
Hope Vale Foundation was awarded a $500,000 Coles Nurture Fund grant to scale up a native giant freshwater prawn project in Far North Queensland, creating new jobs and helping bring an Australian-grown native protein, long valued by the Hope Vale Aboriginal community, to more Australians.
The funding follows the team’s appearance at premier agrifood innovation event, EvokeAG, earlier this year, where they presented their plan to commercialise Australia’s giant freshwater prawn, also known as cherabin, to solve two major problems: food insecurity in remote communities, and the looming global protein supply gap.
Despite the prawn being native to Northern Australia, and global demand for the product exceeding USD $5 billion dollars, Hope Vale Foundation is the first to progress towards commercialisation of the species in the country.
Hope Vale Foundation general manager Rachelle McIvor said the grant would help the 100 per cent Indigenous-owned and operated not-for-profit move from a successful hatchery trial to building its own hatchery and grow-out ponds on its 19-hectare research and development farm near Cooktown.
“We’ve already proven this can work, with our hatchery trial producing around 200,000 juvenile prawns when we were expecting about 20,000, and now this funding helps us take the next big step,” she said.
“Cherabin is something our community knows and loves, but many Australians haven’t had the chance to experience it yet. It’s a beautiful native freshwater prawn, and we think it has a really exciting future as an Australian-grown native protein.
“This project is about much more than prawns. It’s about creating meaningful jobs that suit our community, building skills and opening up future opportunities for local people to be part of the supply chain.”
Since 2015, the Coles Nurture Fund has awarded more than $43 million to 127 Australian businesses, providing grants of up to $500,000 for projects that support sustainability, efficiency and growth.
The latest round marked the largest amount awarded to Queensland producers in a single round of the program, with total support for Queensland businesses growing to $9.7 million.
Coles Group chief commercial and sustainability officer Anna Croft said the Queensland recipients in round 14 reflected the ingenuity, ambition and practical problem-solving of local producers.
“We’re proud to support four Queensland small and medium-sized businesses with $2 million in grants to help bring their ideas to life,” she said.
“These projects show the breadth of innovation happening across Queensland, from AI zucchini grading technology and Indigenous-led aquaculture to turning imperfect ginger and turmeric into Australian-grown pantry products and taking mobile dehydration technology directly to farms.
“Each recipient is tackling a real challenge in their business or industry, whether that’s reducing waste, improving efficiency, creating new opportunities for regional communities or developing more sustainable ways to produce food.”
The giant freshwater prawn brings hope for locally produced protein on Cape York. Photo: Supplied.
