The Unexpected Guest, an Australian-made and owned breakfast food products company has been named as the inaugural winner of oOh!media’s Indigenous business grant.
Lead image: Jenny Khan and Sarah Young.
Launched to support Indigenous small businesses with pro-bono and significantly discounted out-of-home media packages, The Unexpected Guest was one of 63 submissions received from a broad scope of Indigenous companies across a range of categories including FMCG, labour hire and retail.
The Unexpected Guest was founded in 2016 by Jenny Khan in southwest Sydney and creates delicious products that promote health and wellbeing, such as health bars and organic mueslis, made with native ingredients and sourced from Australian-owned businesses, in addition to supporting organic and fair trade practices.
oOh!’s assessment team selected The Unexpected Guest because of its entrepreneurial spirit, growth ambitions and commitment to work with like-minded partners to advance First Nations commerce.
“As a fully First Nations Australian small business, we love bringing our great-tasting organic breakfast products to the tables of people across the country. Driving awareness of the brand continues to be a challenge, so being chosen by oOh! for its first Indigenous Business Grant will give us much-needed exposure to help us realise our objectives. We’re thrilled our efforts have been recognised in this way and can’t wait to work with oOh!’s team to share The Unexpected Guest with more Australians,” said Jenny Khan, director and owner of The Unexpected Guest.
“The quality of submissions for our first Indigenous Business Grant were outstanding and we want to thank all those that took the time to apply. Amongst the strong contenders was The Unexpected Guest, an innovative business that has demonstrated ongoing success and resilience and we are delighted to help support Jenny and this First Nations small business with national audiences at scale across the oOh! network,” said Sarah Young, group director, ESG, oOh!media.
oOh! launched its inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) to strengthen awareness of and relationships with First Nations people and drive meaningful reconciliation action across the business last year. It is currently in the development phase of the Innovate RAP, the next stage of the RAP framework, that focuses on strengthening relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and piloting strategies for further reconciliation commitments and to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Following the significant interest and applications for the inaugural Indigenous Business Grant, oOh! will open applications for 2025 this December.
