Where the F*ck Did This Come From?
Chef. HarvestStack Co-Founder. Frustrated buyer.
Sascha Rust on the question that changed everything.
It Started with a Simple Question
I didn’t always have an obsession with provenance. Like most chefs, I cared about the story behind what I was cooking, but it took years before I truly understood why not knowing was a problem.
As a kid, I have core memories of being sent out to collect eggs from our chickens, dodging anthills and half-rotted mangoes, the air thick with the sweet must of sun-warmed fruit. Our geese would charge me every time, dust and feathers flying, a daily reminder that food, even the humble egg, comes with its own drama and history.
My family’s story was a patchwork of European grit and North Queensland dirt: my grandfather baking German rye in a town that didn’t know what to do with it, my dad captaining prawn trawlers in the Gulf, my grandmother teaching whole food diets to city holidaymakers, and my mum in the lab, uncovering the fragility of the Great Barrier Reef’s microorganisms. The link between us all was food, always good, always shared, always with a story.
From Curiosity to Crisis
By 25, I’d cooked my way through kitchens, learned from some of the best, and, like many, burned out a few times along the way. But just cooking with ingredients wasn’t enough. I needed to know more. Where did this come from? Who raised it, caught it, grew it?
And why, in a country obsessed with food, was it so hard to get a straight answer?
Today, “where’s this from?” is a cliché, but the truth is, most of us still don’t know. We trust our fishmonger when they stab a handwritten label, “Line Caught Snapper from Victoria,” into a slab of white-fleshed fillet. But behind that label is a mess: notes scribbled in sheds, tubs of melting ice, handshake deals, phone calls, trucks, planes, borders crossed, and somewhere along the way, the story gets lost.
Sometimes, it’s not just messy, it’s dishonest.
The Truth About What’s on Our Plates
In 2021, a study found that up to 11% of seafood sold in Australia was mislabelled, and globally, food fraud costs the industry an estimated $40 billion a year. If we don’t know where something came from, how do we know it was harvested responsibly, or if it’s even what it claims to be?
The stakes are high. Agriculture is the leading cause of extinction in Australia, and overfishing and habitat loss threaten the future of our oceans. Organisations like the Australian Marine Conservation Society have built tools like GoodFish to help buyers make better choices, but even with demand for transparency, the system keeps breaking down.
The Moment It All Snapped into Focus
I saw it firsthand. After placing my seafood order, I’d watch the same fish arrive as “fresh” day after day, sometimes yesterday’s catch, sometimes older, sometimes more expensive. The writing was on the wall: something needed to change.
The real kicker came in 2020, in a conversation with Dr. Benjamin Thompson from Monash University. We interviewed a senior seafood industry leader who laid it out in brutal clarity:
“I sat there with the entire board of a major wholesaler ... I showed them through a digital technology platform ... And one of them said, ‘This is great, completely transparent, but we don’t want our consumers to know that information.’”
Truly wild. We have the tools to fix the system, but the people in power don’t want it fixed. While you’re searching for a better way, and fishers and farmers are working to do the right thing, the suppliers you trust are often working against you.
So We Built HarvestStack
That’s why we built HarvestStack. We’re here to cut through the bullshit. Our platform connects chefs, fishers, farmers, and buyers directly, with radical transparency at every step.
You know who caught your fish, how it was harvested, and where it came from, no more guesswork, no more handshakes in the dark. It’s about restoring trust, protecting the planet, and making sure the story behind every ingredient is as honest as the food on your plate.
The system is broken, but it’s not beyond repair.
If you care about what you eat, demand to know where the f*ck it came from.
And if you’re ready for a better way, you’re not alone. We’re building it, one story at a time.
Key Stats & Sources
Up to 11% of seafood sold in Australia is mislabelled (CSIRO, 2021)
$40 billion global cost of food fraud annually (FAO, 2020)
Agriculture is the #1 cause of extinction in Australia (WWF Australia, 2021)
GoodFish is a tool by the Australian Marine Conservation Society to help buyers choose sustainable seafood