Chocolate On Purpose, Australia’s first fully Indigenous-owned chocolate company, won Champion in Social Enterprise Business at the 2025 Women’s Small Business Awards. Here’s how it all began.
What’s happening: Chocolate On Purpose, Australia’s first 100% Indigenous-owned chocolate company, has won Champion in Social Enterprise Business at the 2025 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards.
Why this matters: The recognition validates a business model that proves social enterprise can deliver transformative impact whilst maintaining commercial success.
The story behind Australia’s first 100% Indigenous-owned chocolate company begins with a five-year-old Wiradjuri girl taken from her father’s family. It begins with hidden identity, deep trauma, and a long journey towards healing.
Fiona Harrison is the founder and CEO of Chocolate On Purpose. Now, her company has just won one of Australia’s prestigious business awards. But when she looks back at how it all started, she sees something very different from a traditional business origin story.
Writing on the company’s blog, Harrison shares what shaped her early years. She grew up with what she calls hidden Aboriginality, and the trauma from being removed from her family ran deep. Her Wiradjuri language teacher once explained the feeling as “only having as many children as you can grab and run with, because that’s how dangerous it was.” That foundational insecurity shaped Harrison into someone who lived very carefully.
Life, however, pushed her in unexpected directions. While working at a bank, an armed holdup led her to develop PTSD and panic attacks. Plants became her unexpected source of healing. “It was through the phytochemicals of plants that I addressed my first panic attack and never had another one,” Harrison writes.
This discovery led her to study aromatic medicine, learning how plants could support wellness. She quickly noticed a problem: when people’s finances were tight, they would stop buying plant-based remedies but continued spending on alcohol or other coping methods. Harrison realised she needed a universal language: something people wouldn’t abandon.
Chocolate entered the picture when a class suggestion sparked an idea. Harrison envisioned combining chocolate with medicinal plants. “Today, that same intuition guides my signature Finger Lime Dark Chocolate, where ancient plant wisdom meets modern chocolate craft,” she writes. A conversation with a friend shifted her focus from Amazonian superfoods to native Australian bush foods: plants her Ancestors had used for over 60,000 years. “That was the day bush food chocolate was born,” Harrison writes.
Impact across three continents
Chocolate On Purpose has lifted 122,000 cacao farmers above the poverty line, eliminated 25,000 cases of forced child labour, and supported 37,146 Indigenous women farmers in Africa and Ecuador. Environmentally, the company prevents 174 tonnes of CO2 emissions every hour and preserves 300 football fields worth of rainforest.
“This recognition validates that Indigenous women’s leadership matters,” Harrison said. “We’re not just making chocolate, we’re reclaiming economic sovereignty, empowering cacao farmers, and creating pathways for Aboriginal women aged 45-plus, the fastest-growing demographic experiencing homelessness.”
Based on Gundungurra Country in Moss Vale, NSW, Chocolate On Purpose reinvests over 50% of profits into Indigenous communities and cacao farmers. Despite this, it attracts major commercial clients like ASX-listed corporations, multinational entertainment companies, and Big Four firms. Harrison says the three pillars of her social enterprise (People, Planet, and Equity) developed naturally from her values. Every bar tells a story of Indigenous botanical wisdom while advancing economic sovereignty.
Reclaiming Indigenous sovereignty
At the heart of the company sits the Ngunggilanha Project, “reciprocity” in Wiradjuri. Funded through the NSW Government’s Regional Aboriginal Partnerships Programme, it creates employment pathways for Aboriginal women 45+, combining chocolate production with a native botanical sensory garden. The garden teaches practical horticulture, transfers Cultural knowledge, and provides healing through connection to Country.
Despite a $300 million native botanical industry in Australia, Indigenous people make up less than 2% of the supply chain. “The Ngunggilanha Project represents our commitment to addressing intergenerational trauma, economic marginalisation, and Cultural preservation simultaneously,” Harrison said.
Chocolate On Purpose only sources Australian native botanicals from Indigenous growers, creating a transparent, ethical supply chain. Internationally, fair trade cacao sourcing protects Indigenous farming communities in Africa and Ecuador from exploitation while ensuring prosperity.
Building the future
By 2030, Harrison aims for $10 million in economic activity through Indigenous enterprises, mentoring 50+ Aboriginal women entrepreneurs, and establishing Australia’s first Indigenous-led chocolate manufacturing facility. This facility represents self-determination and Cultural preservation, showing that Indigenous-led businesses can compete commercially while maintaining integrity and delivering social impact.
Founded in 2012, the company has grown from Harrison’s personal healing journey into a business model attracting major corporate clients without compromising on ethical sourcing, environmental protection, or Indigenous empowerment. The 2025 Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Award confirms that businesses built on Cultural values and social purpose can achieve both commercial success and systemic change.
For Harrison, the mission connects back to that moment in a car park when the business name came to her. Chocolate would drive the purpose that emerged from childhood trauma, plant medicine, and her Ancestors’ knowledge. Chocolate On Purpose has created pathways for 122,000 cacao farmers, eliminated child labour in 25,000 cases, supported over 37,000 Indigenous women farmers, and provides employment opportunities for Aboriginal women facing homelessness.
The story proves that businesses grounded in Cultural values and social purpose can transform lives across continents while remaining commercially successful. Indigenous leadership represents less than 2% of an industry built on Indigenous knowledge. Chocolate On Purpose shows what happens when those holding the knowledge also control the economic power. The Ngunggilanha Cultural Sensory Garden preserves and transfers Cultural knowledge, while the chocolate production facility creates economic opportunities and Indigenous leadership in the chocolate industry.
From a five-year-old girl removed from her family to a CEO building $10 million in Indigenous economic activity, Harrison’s journey exemplifies the transformative power of reconnecting with Culture, following Ancestral guidance, and building purpose-driven businesses. “We’re not just making chocolate,” Harrison said. “We’re reclaiming economic sovereignty.”
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