Improving Indigenous health for 16 years

Outback Stores was founded in November 2006. It was set up by a group of retailers from large mainstream retail businesses, with the support of Indigenous Business Australia. The company emerged from a need to improve the health of Indigenous people in remote Australia by addressing nutrition-related health problems, unreliable food supplies, stores closing because of poor governance and build-up of debt.

If the store is commercially self-sufficient, the store owners work with the store committee to decide how to spend the profits for the benefit of the community. If the store is not commercially self-sufficient Outback Stores support the store financially to ensure there is food security.

The first official Outback Stores’ managed store opened at Canteen Creek in May 2007, although relief managers had begun providing retail services to Imanpa in November 2006 and Ringer Soak (Kundat Djaru) in March 2007.

Over sixteen years later Outback Stores continues to make a positive difference to the health, employment and economy of remote Indigenous communities in which we work.