Popular Aboriginal eatery Blak Cede Gunyah debuted its newest food truck at the Yabun Festival on Monday, bringing great food and community spirit to Australia's largest annual festival celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
An Aboriginal women-led social and cultural enterprise established by Waminda, Blak Cede Gunyah is a Nowra-based cafe and shop which uses locally sourced native ingredients to create high-quality, Indigenous-inspired food and products.
On Monday, their new food truck rolled into Victoria Park to serve the tens of thousands of festival-goers gathered for Yabun.
"This is our first rodeo with the food truck," Marley Ashby, a proud Koori woman from the Jerrinja, Cullunghutti and Wandi Wandian communities, and Blak Cede Gunyah's e-commerce coordinator and marketing manager, said.
"We're really happy to be here and everything that we're about, as a social cultural enterprise, is about the community involved and what better way to do it than being at Yabun."
Ms Ashby said the opportunity came after organisers reached out directly.
"Yabun actually reached out to us and said that they were having discussions around the table, and Blak Cede got brought up a lot," she said.
"So we thought this would be the perfect opportunity for us to showcase our food van.
"Even though we have not done any runs before this, this has literally just hit the ground running at probably the biggest event we could ever do."
Crowds gathering around the truck throughout the day, quickly signalled Blak Cede Gunyah's popularity.
"It's amazing. We've literally just been hit since we opened this morning at 10 AM. So I feel like we haven't even let it really sink in that we're here and this is the first run of the food truck," Ms Ashby said.
While the demand exceeded expectations, Ms Ashby said the team had anticipated strong interest due to Blak Cede Gunyah's growing online presence.
"I think we knew," she admitted.
"We're pretty big on our social media, like, we've got nearly 5,000 followers on Instagram. And we started posting TikToks about a couple of months ago, and we've already got like two and a half thousand.
"And a lot of people have said that, you know, they've seen us on TikTok. So, we knew that we were going to get smashed, but we didn't know how big."
For Ms Ashby, the response reflected a broader appetite for Indigenous food and businesses.
"I think it's amazing because a lot of people who come here just want to experience Indigenous cuisine and support a social and cultural enterprise like Blak Cede," she said.
Several menu items proved especially popular on the day, including Yabun-exclusive specials.
"The pulled-roo taco has been a hit today. I think that's been one of our most sold," Ms Ashby said.
"That's actually not on our menu normally, so it's just kind of a special for Yabun."
The cafe's signature 'Deco roll' — a decolonised take on a bacon and egg roll using native spiced bacon — also proved popular, alongside another Yabun special, a classic Devon and tomato sauce sandwich.
"It's already sold out," Ms Ashby laughed, "Everyone wanted Devon today."
With their food truck trial completed, the positive response from festival goers strengthens Blak Cede's mission of community health, cultural reinvestment and Indigenous economic empowerment.
Earlier this month, cafe manager Melanie Williams, from the Wreck Bay Aboriginal community in the Yuin Nation, had reflected on the importance of community support.
"Having people support the cafe is one way of giving back to the Indigenous community. It's supporting businesses like ours, supporting Blak business," she said.
