Local business Native Secrets gearing for a lucrative global market needs skilled staff and machinery

Phil Thompson, the owner of Native Secrets, arrived home this week from Queensland, after crisscrossing other states, to inspect forestry-grade harvesting machines that will efficiently and properly strip leaves and branches from native plants.

Phil and his wife, Cherie Thompson, are the brains behind a range of Native Secrets brands of beauty and skin care products made in Dubbo.

Both carry steep entrepreneurial dreams to employ knowledge of their Indigenous culture and environment when they created Native Secrets in 2014.

"It has been a challenge, I do not think we can even make a start before the end of this year. We have to find the right equipment, particularly a harvester and excavator," Mr Thompson said.

The couple's novel business idea to extract essential oils from some of Australia's native plants to produce natural shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, and body wash has been successful with many of their brands sold online to customers everywhere and at shops in Dubbo.

They've made headwinds particularly since the state government handpicked them in July this year as one of the Indigenous enterprises assisted by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's Kickstart Program.

Under the program, funded by the NSW government with $400,000, Native Secrets will be using an extraction technology and process recommended by CSIRO to extract medicinal compounds from native plants.

They will extract compounds from native Gumby Gumby plants to derive medicines, as well as other plant sources of essential oil such as Buddha Wood, Kakadu Plum, White cypress leaf, Davidson Plum, Finger Lime, and Lemon Myrtle.

Mr Thompson is a Bidjara man from Central Queensland who married Cherie, a school teacher and Wailwan woman from Warren, and has settled in Dubbo with their two daughters.

While working their day jobs, Mr Thompson, a former clerk and public servant, and his wife developed their home-based business extracting oil for their beauty products.

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They applied for assistance from CSIRO to allow their company to expand and sell globally, employ local Indigenous staff to do the laborious process of oil extraction, manufacture the products locally, and learn export marketing techniques.

Mr Thompson said tapping the local Indigenous workforce is their first priority before finding staff elsewhere to create local jobs for families in the area.

"We are prepared to train people that don't have the skill but possess the right attitude. We need people with tickets for industrial machines, who know how to use chainsaws, and general construction, and marketing people for example," Mr Thompson said.

"We're prepared to put in the extra mile to ensure we have successful employment strategies and staff retention in place.

"The jobs we offer can help those people looking to get a break in the workforce. We in the local business community, want to give jobs to the best people so they can provide for their families.

"We want to make sure that jobs are in a safe space, and a real opportunity for the best person."

This Christmas, Mr Thompson said their products are ready to fill Santa's stockings that anyone can browse from their website, at Dubbo's Tourist Information Centre on Macquarie Street, Health Boost, and Daily Scoop.

"It's taken us a long time to make these products for people's well-being and we are preparing a new range to be launched by February next year," Mr Thompson said.

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