ARTICLE / THE MAKING OF... SERIES
The making of...
HarvestStack.
In a food system often built for convenience over connection, chef-turned-founder Sascha Rust decided there had to be a better way. After years of working directly with producers and seeing how broken the wholesale model had become, he co-founded HarvestStack, a technology platform that makes direct trade between fishers, farmers and buyers simple and scalable.
Having worked closely with HarvestStack on building their brand, we sat down again with Sascha to talk about creating a purpose-led tech company from the kitchen up, rethinking what scale really means, and why changing food systems starts with changing human behaviour.
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The making of... Series
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#HarvestStack #founderstories #foodsysteminnovation #supplychaintech #sustainability #brandbuilding #entrepreneurlife #themakingof #startupstories #purposeledbusiness #impactdriven
Hey Sascha, lovely to catch up again and welcome to The making of… Great to have you. Let’s start at the beginning. Who are you, and what’s the story behind HarvestStack?
I’m Sascha, co-founder of HarvestStack, a supply chain technology system that makes direct trade between fishers, farmers and their customers simple and scalable, with a vision of a food system that can actually heal the world.
My background and my co-founders’ backgrounds are wildly different. I am a chef by trade who got passionate about local and sustainable food systems at a young age. I’ve been working on businesses, not-for-profit programs and initiatives around this for about 15 years. My co-founder, Stephen Eyre, led multinational FMCG’s Australian operations before joining us and comes to food through human health, performance and nutrition. Then our third, Shaun Stewart, comes out of consulting but is happiest when diving, sailing or out in nature. Different worlds, but we all come together under a shared drive to shape a healthier natural environment through food systems.
Sascha Rust and Shaun Stewart, co-founders of HarvestStack.
Coming from hospitality, you’ve seen the good and the bad of food supply chains firsthand. What sparked the idea to reinvent how it all works?
Working directly with fishers and farmers has always felt natural to me. It was how things were done in my restaurant days, but it was always hard. Meanwhile, the wholesale system offered a terrible experience with no visibility of who the product came from, how it was produced or how sustainable it really was.
We set out to redesign the system through a platform that removes those pain points and makes transparent trade easy, efficient and rewarding for everyone involved.
You describe HarvestStack as being born from lived experience. How did that translate into your early research and validation?
Ten years of running restaurants and relying on the old way was my lived research. But we went further. With research partners at Monash University, we published papers showing that some actors in the supply chain actually don’t want primary producers to have direct relationships with buyers because it removes their market advantage.
So we built the first version with spreadsheets and persistence until producers, chefs and buyers gave us clear signals that it added real value.
That early version sounds very hands-on. What did the first iterations of HarvestStack actually look like?
Version one was basically me with a spreadsheet listing a handful of species and volumes that a fisher had caught. I then called a list of chefs, mostly friends, and said, “Do you want this? It was just caught. You can have it tomorrow.”
The next morning, I jumped in a car with boxes in the back, drove three hours to the fisher’s house, packed the orders, handwrote restaurant names on each box, and drove back to Melbourne to drop them off myself. That was HarvestStack 1.0, powered by caffeine and conviction.
Every startup has its messy middle. How did you get from that version to something scalable?
Our establishment journey is a little complicated, but we were incredibly fortunate to have a dedicated angel investor back us early on. That helped, but it also came with the responsibility of shaking someone’s hand and spending their money every day based on a vision you have to believe in completely.
You’re building a system that touches everything from tech to trust. How did you approach branding and storytelling for something this complex?
Step one was sitting in a room, throwing out brand names and hating all of them. Step two was settling on the one we hated the least, saying, “I’m sure we can change it later.” Step three was realising we had zero creative capacity and calling in the professionals, the legends at Hunter, for help.
Love that answer! Now, HarvestStack’s mission is as much about values as it is about technology. How are you spreading the word and building awareness?
So far, our most powerful move has been living our values every day. We are radically transparent and collaborative, doing everything we can to help producers who genuinely care connect with buyers who feel the same way. As a result, people are starting to know us as the team to call when they want the best, whilst doing the right thing.
Looking ahead, what’s the biggest challenge you see in bringing this vision to scale?
All of the technical challenges are solvable. The real challenge is behaviour change at scale. How do we maintain clarity of purpose as we grow? Right now, we work with people who already care deeply about their impact. As we reach the mainstream, we’ll need to shift how the majority produce and consume, and do it in a way that inspires, not lectures.
Ok, final question time. With all that you’ve learned on your journey so far, what advice would you give another founder at the starting line?
All the advice you’ll be given won’t prepare you for how hard you’ll need to work, how many times you’ll have to pivot, or how often you’ll need to pick yourself up. Haters will hate, but your own conviction is what truly matters.
