Pantry Files: Undivided Food Co Co-Founder, Briar Macky

We chat with Undivided Co-Founder, Briar Macky, to hear about Undivided Food Co’s sustainability journey, her favourite recipe of the moment and Undivided’s sister brand Oat Milk Goodness.

What is behind your name ‘Undivided Food Co’?

We wanted to create supermarket staples with integrity. For us that means a more holistic approach where we care about the whole product lifecycle from sourcing ingredients, to ensuring our products are nutrient dense, taste really good and that we ‘close the loop’ with our packaging (we offset our plastic use and are carbon positive). An ‘undivided’ approach!

Can you tell us a bit about the philosophy underpinning your broths and sauces?

Our goal was to make real, time-honoured and nutrient dense food as delicious and convenient as possible. It all started with bone broth, which myself and my business partners made at home and consumed regularly. We knew everyone could benefit from the healing properties of bone broth but most people didn’t have the inclination to make it themselves. So GOOD BONES Broth was born!

When we expanded into making more pantry staples like GOOD Fat Mayo and the GOOD Sauces, they were all products that we wanted in our pantries but couldn’t find brands that we were happy with in terms of ingredients and ethics. We knew that we could make better, cleaner products ourselves here in Australia with such great quality Aussie ingredients.

What were some of your biggest challenges when you started Undivided Food Co.?

We were very green to the food industry, and we’ve learnt a lot the hard way! We’re a small team so we all need to be across almost every aspect of the business, so learning the ins and outs of running a business and a new industry has been most challenging.

What does organic mean to you and why should we choose organic?

I like to know where the food I buy comes from and try to eat local, organic, seasonal produce and pasture-raised and grass-fed meat & poultry when possible. When you care about where your food comes from, you start caring about the bigger (undivided) picture. Organic isn’t always achievable, but getting to my local farmers market and butcher every week is high on my list of priorities.

What are some of the ways that Undivided Food Co gives back to the planet?

We are proudly climate positive because we plant trees in the WA wheatbelt each year and have solar panels at our warehouse. We are also plastic positive because we sponsor plastic cleanup via Empower.eco. Last year we sponsored the cleanup of 3000kg of plastic, over two times what we estimate we use in a year. The cleanup is carried out by verified Empower partners in over 40 countries, tackling the waste problem where it’s needed the most.

What’s next on the horizon for Undivided Food Co? Do you have any new products under development?

We started a sister business recently called Oat Milk Goodness (or OMG). We make oat milk with Aussie oats and Aussie olive oil (instead of seed oils like canola or sunflower oil). It’s Australian made oat milk and performs really well in coffee. Once we get OMG established, we have some more exciting ideas for Undivided.

Image: Briar and the OMG team

What items are always in your pantry? What are your go-to pantry items?

Lots of fresh local organic veg, well sourced meat, organic eggs, berkelo sourdough, homemade pesto, meru miso, goats cheese and good quality yoghurt, tahini, dark chocolate and of course plenty of our GOOD BONES Broth which I add to EVERYTHING as well as our GOOD Sauce and GOOD fat Mayo.

What is your favourite thing to cook right now?

These herby brothy prawns by one of our favourite foodies, Meg Yonson, are a real winner.