"I'd never run a business before. I'd never been part of a business before. I was a career police officer and when I came out I had an idea," Mr Smith said.

The Wellington man wanted to start a new venture centred around Aboriginal-flavoured food.

"I did some research and I found there weren't a lot of Aboriginal companies out there that were playing the game in terms of supplying corporate companies with snack food. I had that idea, and I'd experienced Aboriginal food for a long time because I had it when I was a kid," Mr Smith said.

"I thought this was something new, it was something different, it could suit a niche market."

In 2015, Mr Smith launched Dreamtime Tuka.

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Ten months later he signed a deal with Qantas.

"I was the first Aboriginal company that put bakery products on Qantas planes," Mr Smith said.

Dreamtime Tuka started with sweet foods like slices as muffins, but using flavours such as lemon myrtle and roasted wattleseeds.

"I wanted to build a company that would start servicing corporate companies. I wanted to sell pallet loads of products to these companies, not one or two boxes. And we're doing that," Mr Smith said.

In October, Qantas is running a special breast cancer awareness week and Mr Smith developed a specific pink slice for the occasion.

For that week, almost 500,000 slices have been ordered.

"Inside four years I've expanded the company to be nationally recognised. We're servicing all states with our products. We service government departments, private companies, private citizens and other large corporate companies," Mr Smith said.

"We've built up the company to have quite a bit of credibility in the industry."

Despite being 67-years-old, Mr Smith is happy to have started his business when he did.

"Retirement is only a word. It's not a mandatory thing. The other things is, age is just a number. What you do with it is up to you," he said.

When he launched the business he did so without trepidation.

"I knew what I wanted to do. I had a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve," Mr Smith said.

"The key thing is having a product that somebody wants to buy. You could have 20 products but if nobody wants to buy them it's no good to you.

The Dreamtime Tuka founder and CEO runs the business in Wellington with the manufacturing done through Earlyrise Baking in Dubbo.

"I've proven you don't have to live in a large regional city or a capital city to be successful. If you have a company that's producing a product that somebody wants to buy, producing a product that's quite good, and you mix that with a dose of passion, motivation and hard work, you can be successful anywhere you are," Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith was born and raised in Wellington. He left in 1973 to join the NSW Police Force, where he worked for 31 years.

"Of course that took me away but I was always going to come back one day. After I retired I never ever didn't think I'd be coming home," he said.

"A lot of my family are here, I grew up here and I certainly love the country areas.

"I was always coming back to Wellington."

The next step for the business will be the launch of the Dreamtime Tuka Pathway to Employment program. It will help get Indigenous people into paid work.

"From experience, I know how important it is to have a job. You don't really know how bad it is until you don't have a job," Mr Smith said.

"If you have a job it can change the whole basis of your life, your family's lifestyle. It can build on your self-esteem and assist you financially.

"There are a lot of people I know who are out there on welfare and they don't want to be on welfare. They'd rather get up in the morning and go to work."

The CEO said it had always been in his plan to help others once his business was large enough to support an employment program.

"If I can take two people from Bourke or two people from Brewarrina and give them a job and take them out of the cycle of poverty, that would be fantastic. It would be great," Mr Smith said.