The good oil’s a treat
THE Far North is home to small and medium-sized businesses smashing it with their business acumen, their work-life balance and their products.
They are serving growing numbers of customers, helping drive the local economy, adding to the character of the Far North and saving the earth as they go.
This region is home to plenty of standouts making customers take notice around Australia – and the world – and these are some of the best.
Rare Earth Oils
“Conscious commerce” might not be a term that comes readily to mind when you think of the oil industry, but it is front of mind for Rahm Adamedes and Meleuka Morton-Masterman of Kuranda’s Rare Earth Oils.
For more than 20 years they have worked in youth, media, language and culture preservation projects in remote Indigenous communities in places such as the central desert and Torres Strait.
They have turned their interests and commitment to social justice into a business for change for the better.
“The way to generate long-term social change is through conscious commerce, generational change,” Rahm said.
“As a foundation we partnered with Australia’s largest media charity, Unlimited, we developed partnerships with NGOS, and then we decided to develop our own social enterprise for long term sustainability.” That social enterprise, founded by the Rare Earth Foundation, is Rare Earth Oils, a business that harvests the medicinal capacities of native plants and produces Australian plant oils, fusing them with European herbal traditions and Ayurvedic (Indian) medicine.
It all has the aim of developing economic independence, or “long term outcomes” for Indigenous communities.
It’s taken a few years for their business to be strong and independent enough to do that. They were clear that first and foremost they wanted to make their enterprise viable.
“We’ve created a social enterprise and the foundation is established now to promote and protect endangered languages, and to share culture with non-Indigenous people,” he said.
“We are facilitating transgenerational change through enterprise to promote the sovereignty of Indigenous elders.”
And in Rare Earth Oils Rahm and Meleuka have created a business that stands on its own.
They wild harvest and distil, among others, three distinct species of eucalypt, and with a bit of tweaking have created an organic alternative to Vicks Vapour Rub.
They’ve made what he calls a “hot and spicy” muscle rub for pain and circulation, another product to help heal the skin, organic balms, and with the JCU chemistry department they have transformed one of their oils into “one of the strongest insect repellents in the world”, he said.
“We’re producing in a global market where some of the largest producers are in Brazil and China.
“We’ve had to make a high quality oil, and innovate with chemistry to get a competitive advantage to maintain our commercial viability.”
Rare Earth Oils, he said, is poised to compete in the market with large pharmaceutical companies creating cheaper products.
“To be successful and survive in business you need to think globally and act locally, and we want to be the best,” he said.
“To maintain commercial viability (we have to) operate globally to be economically viable.”
He says many small businesses may not consider international trade and the logistics, packaging and marketing that goes with it, but without that, they are just another small business never able to break out of the local market.
“Adapt, diversify, evolve or die,” he said.