Shannon Motlop sees a future where Australia's native plants and foods can take pride of place around the world.

Graduating out of family businesses in the Territory, the former AFL player's company Aboriginal Community Harvest stepped out on its own to do things properly in 2021.

Motlop harvests native foods like Kakadu plum, Magpie geese, green ants and Rosella hibiscus from the land while consulting with Traditional Owners and offering employment to help supply a burgeoning market.

ACH started off at a small scale servicing restaurant supply company Something Wild and Seven Seasons Spirits - both in the family, before taking on the expansion challenge.

"I went along for a couple of years just sort of working with just whatever I had," Motlop told National Indigenous Times about the early days.

He's grown to the capacity of hiring a small team of casual staff, getting out into the community and working with local custodians - with ambition to grow bigger.

The relationship goes both ways.

"We get support from those communities, and we support them as well," he said.

According to research out of the University of Sydney, in 2025, the native sector has been forecast with the potential to double from a $81.5 million industry five years ago.

ACH is eyeing off being a piece of that boom.

Grants from the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation, now Aboriginal Investment NT, "sort of came to the rescue" early on in ACH's history, largely for the purchase of materials which have since strengthened the business development.

"It's able to give me an opportunity to go to communities and get harvesters in communities and set up harvesters," Mr Motlop told National Indigenous Times in March, with further grant injections on the horizon.

Aboriginal Investment NT offers grants from $10,000 as a one-off, from $300,000-$1 million for larger community-led projects, and business development grants in between, to support Indigenous economic development and "benefit" in the Territory.

"The main thing is, going back to the foundations of nation-building, that the decisions and the businesses, their growth, comes from the decision-making of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory," Aboriginal Investment NT chief operating officer Dierdre O'Sullivan told National Indigenous Times.

Businesses can apply for professional grants as they grow, with oversight from AINT involved.

On Motlop's work, Ms O'Sullivan described "a real success story" and an example of the "ultimate for AINT.

"(Indigenous businesspeople) using the resources from their country, from their culture, to generate a sustainable business and create employment…the economic benefits for that are brilliant," she said.

Mr Motlop said only a handful of what's out there has so far been run with on restaurant tables, with so much still untapped.

"Native foods are very popular in Australia, but I want to take them outside of Australia. That's my ambition.

"I also want to bring new products to the table that haven't been previously used. There's thousands of native foods out there we don't eat out currently.

"I want to try and expand that as well."