FEATURE
Food for the future A cousinly connection linked to Lane Cove is helping forge a new way of buying sustainably sourced product. WORDS: TRACEY PORTER
Cara and Lauren
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uthenticity is everything to Cara Cooper and Lauren Aware that food accounts for around 26 per cent of Branson. greenhouse gas emissions and agriculture is listed as It can be seen in the way Cooper a threat to more than 85 per cent of the world’s maintains her strong familial ties to the species currently threatened with extinction, Lane Cove community, despite the fact her Branson felt she had no option but to “We also wanted career has seen her traverse around the practice what she was preaching. globe. “I couldn’t sit back and watch to nourish our It can also be witnessed in the way any longer. I needed to be part of the children in a way Branson relies on her village to help solution. We also wanted to nourish raise her five children while ensuring that passes on our our children in a way that passes on our she does her best to help enhance the own enjoyment of food and educates own enjoyment lives of those around her. them about the role of nature in feeding of food...” So, it should really come as no all of us.” surprise that when ecologist Branson Cooper felt equally as passionate about approached her cousin Cooper and suggested learning more about where the food she was the corporate high flyer join her in launching an feeding her family was grown and by whom. ethical online food provedore business, Cooper needed Having already identified a growing appetite from little convincing. others like themselves - “ethical consumers” who demanded At the time Branson was working in conservation, to know more about what they were consuming - the duo protecting threatened and endangered species and was launched their business, Your Food Collective (YFC) in forced to confront her conflicted feelings when she found 2017. herself witness to Australia’s ongoing animal extinctions. “We knew if we could get food right from the soil up, 28 TVO
