Cast your mind back to July 2020. The world was trudging through a pandemic, and a collection of social housing towers in Melbourne were suddenly placed into lockdown. I remember watching the news, seeing reports of thousands of residents without access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food. On the brighter side, I also saw incredible food charities stepping up to help.

With restrictions in place, I couldn’t volunteer myself, so I turned to what I knew best: art.

This was a time when the simple act of sharing a meal wasn’t allowed — we couldn’t go to restaurants, we couldn’t visit each other’s homes for long Sunday lunches. I wondered how I could bring a piece of that joy back into people’s homes: the excitement of a chef’s cooking, the joy of preparing a new recipe for a crowd. That’s when the idea clicked: turning recipes into artworks.

My plan was simple: help put food on the table for those in need and bring a little happiness into people’s homes through art.

Sitting at my kitchen table, I called on four Melburnian foodie friends to create a limited-edition collection of posters featuring their most cherished recipes, with all proceeds going to food banks.

Food For Everyone’s first collection featured Julia Busuttil Nishmura, Ellie Bouhadana, Clementine Day, and Suzanne Corbett. In just 14 days, we raised $33,000, with the help of my husband, parents, and friends who all volunteered to pack orders.

I didn’t know it then, but this was just the beginning.

The world was still in flux, as everyone tried to find a new normal. During this time, I had a baby boy. Between naps and feeds, I kept painting, releasing a new collection of posters and raising more funds for food banks.

A quick trip to Brisbane for my baby to meet his grandparents for the first time turned into a year-long move. I was lucky that a family friend offered me a small studio along the river, where I also found my first employee — someone who shared my vision and still works with me to this day. Together, we began reaching out to more chefs, cooks, and restaurateurs, expanding the project and reaching more homes.

By 2022, the poster collection had grown to more than 20 pieces, each telling its own story — from family kitchens to some of Australia’s most-loved restaurants.

As we gained momentum, I had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with legends like Hetty McKinnon, Lennox Hastie, and Guillaume Brahimi. By this stage, Food For Everyone had become more established, moving from limited drops to a permanent collection. The mission stayed the same: bringing people together through art, food, and purpose.

After collaborating with so many incredible chefs myself, I wanted to bring more voices into the art — to push the concept in new directions and create unexpected, joyful interpretations of recipes.

For a special collection, I took on the role of curator, match-making artists with chefs to bring fresh perspectives to the recipe poster format.

By the end of the year, we moved back to Melbourne, found a small studio in Fitzroy North, and grew our little team. That’s where we really started putting our heads together and creating some magic!

By 2023, Food For Everyone wasn’t just a poster shop anymore — it had become a community. With our permanent home in Melbourne, we started hosting open studios, group exhibitions, workshops and teamed up with Australian designers and makers who shared the same generous spirit.

We launched our first design collaboration with Daniel + Emma, and were invited to be part of the Australian Culinary Archive at the Powerhouse Museum — a pretty special moment for a small team who started around a kitchen table.

2024 was a big one. We launched a wonderful partnership with Arts Project Australia, a creative studio and gallery that represents neurodivergent artists and artists who live with disabilities, for a collection of four posters celebrating Melbourne.

We also started an event series called Still Life For Everyone, which brings local artists together to step outside of their comfort zones and create quick-fire original artworks. The pieces are then exhibited in a restaurant, giving the public the chance to buy original art at an affordable price.

This year, we moved to a bigger studio in Collingwood and hosted our first pop-up Christmas shop. The lineup of talent continued to grow, featuring legends like Maggie Beer, Josh Niland, Rick Stein, Ken Done, Beci Orpin, and Nadia Hernandez. We also had the honour of creating a First Nations poster in collaboration with Warndu and Aretha Brown.

After five years, Food For Everyone has cemented itself at the intersection of art and food, transforming recipes into artworks that celebrate creativity, connection, and joy.

From our Collingwood studio, we collaborate with artists and chefs around the world — each poster a little love letter to cooking, sharing, and togetherness.

In 2025, we hit a huge milestone: over 900,000 meals donated via SecondBite through funds generated from our posters.

What began as a kitchen-table project has grown into more than just art. It’s a community, a movement, and a celebration of how Australians create, share, and care for one another.

Thank you for being a part of our story.