Market entry & growth
Positioning, customer expectations, category context and go-to-market storytelling for brands entering or scaling in the Australian market, including international food brands.
Food brand & strategy
Turning food identity into commercial advantage
Food, product and brand strategy for businesses ready to sharpen their proposition, build distinctiveness and grow with more clarity
Selected work
QuiteLike
Coles
delicious.
SBS Food
The Cook Up
MasterChef Australia
Hardie Grant
The Morning Show
Studio 10
Mind Food Magazine
InStyle Magazine
Jamie Oliver Magazine
Vogue Brides
HarperCollins
Food is never just product
In a sophisticated, fast-moving market, success takes more than something good to eat. It takes cultural fluency, a sharp proposition that cuts through and the discipline and passion to make product and customer experience work together and build a community of authentic advocates.
I help food businesses shape what they stand for, what they sell and how they show up.
What I do
Brand & proposition strategy
Clarifying the offer, defining the customer, sharpening the promise, and building an impactful creative platform that can continue to evolve.
Product & menu strategy
Designing menu architecture and developing commercially viable food products, ranges and menus grounded in customer behaviour and operational reality.
Food storytelling
Turning flavour, quality, provenance and product proof points into launch stories, partnerships and customer-facing language.
About
I’m Phoebe Wood, a food and media executive
I’ve spent my career turning curiosity about food into brands, products, stories and experiences people want to be part of.
Food is how I understand places and people. I’m a prolific curator of Google Maps, plotting every city through bakeries, markets, noodle shops, kitchenware stores, bistros, corner shops and restaurants worth seeking out. I come home with suitcases full of special finds: cultural condiments, hand-forged chef’s knives and accoutrements of every kind.
I believe in quality over quantity, sustainability, ethical practice and food systems shaped by care for animal welfare, producers, workers and communities. A lot of that was shaped by my time working on the delicious. Produce Awards, where I was exposed not only to some of the best produce in Australia, but to the producers and change-makers making real sacrifices to build a better food system.
Those values matter deeply to me, but they have never made food feel austere. Food is also pleasure, pursuit and obsession. I have argued, politely but firmly, with a restaurant owner in Paris about the correct cuisson for my rib-eye, walked through 40-degree heat in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore in pursuit of perfect laksa, khao soi and flaky roti, and waited two and a half hours in Tokyo for tonkatsu so precise and golden it made the queue feel like part of the ritual.
For me, food is both the mission and the reward. It is culture, connection, nourishment and empowerment. I’m drawn to brands with courage, businesses with a point of view, a clear sense of self and something distinctive to offer. I help those businesses grow, evolve, cut through and make the commercial gains they need to last.
Point of view
Taste is essential but not enough
Food ideas are powerful when the product, customer proposition, margin, menu architecture and brand language all point in the same direction. I make sure your product offering lines up with your brand promise.
Let’s talk