- in this issue -

C O N TE N TS ED’S LETTER p.3 l FARM GATE MARKET p.4 PROVENANCE GROWERS p.9 l The Potato Man p.10 Urban Bounty p.11 l THE APPLE SHED p.12

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- letter from the editors -

we love tassie! Prepare to be delighted by Southern Tasmania. This issue we were inspired by the artisan producers and boutique growers who live and work in the isle down under (no, under that one). We were inspired by hardship, and those who have risen above it. We were inspired by small-scale producers whose fruit and veg taste like pure love. We were inspired by those brave souls who head out no matter how strong the gale force Antartic winds might be. Happy reading! (We promise, you can taste the difference.)

zac & kia xo

why do you come to farm gate?

Denise, Canberra I’m looking for Elgaar cheese for my friend back home - he says it’s the best cheddar he’s ever had!

Pat, Lower Sandy Bay To put a face to the produce.

editor’s picks

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Gemma Ward apple shopping in the Big Apple; Elgaar milk $3.70; Birkenstock Arizonas in white RRP $101; Sweet Envy cookbook RRP $39.95; Fluctuate - Close Counters $6.76 via iTunes store

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Meg, Franklin My Mum has a stall here selling chooks and eggs.

- feature 01 -

what’s your

in basket?

AN AUTHENTIC FARMERS’ MARKET BRINGS HOBART’S FOOD LOVERS TOGETHER EVERY SUNDAY

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ain, hail or shine, the ritual ringing of a hand-held bell at 9 o’clock each Sunday morning signals the beginning of trade at Hobart’s Farm Gate Market. From hot coffee, to dips and preserves, to organic, seasonal fruit and vegetables, Farm Gate is both a Sunday meeting place for friends and family, and somewhere to get the weekly grocery shopping done. Market owner, manager and creator Madi Seeber-Peattie has always had a knack for event management. At a crossroads in her career just over five years ago, ready to move on from a management role in the Taste of the Huon, Madi was faced with a choice - either moving to corporate events, or starting a farmers’ market. “I just couldn’t go past the idea of working together with other small businesses that might be struggling like mine, combined with a fierce passion for this state – I’ve been around the world four times,

but I’ve ended up back here, living in the same road that I grew up in and married to a guy from across the hill. I just love Tassie!” Farm Gate Market began in 2009 with twelve stallholders, and an organiser determined to adhere to the principles of a farmer’s market. These days, with a loyal customer base and over 230 stallholders on its books, Madi fondly recalls the market’s tremulous beginning. “My stallholders don’t know this, but in the first year I dry-retched in the shower every Sunday morning. I was so nervous that my stallholders wouldn’t make enough. You could fire a gun through that market at 11 o’clock and you wouldn’t shoot anyone – it was so dead. I just so badly wanted it to work.” Initially, Madi battled both her own notions and disgruntled stallholders, over what the market should be about. Five years on, she attributes much of the market’s success to her strict curation and auditing of stall4

Mountain Pepper Rice is added to a vegetarian paella before trade starts

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT Provenance Growers’ Violet Sicilian Cauliflower; Geeveston’s Masaaki sushi; Masaaki makes sushi to order; Mountain Pepper Paella

- feature 01 -

holders. She closely guards the key principles of a farmers’ market. If you can’t eat it, drink it or plant it, it’s not for Farm Gate, so arts & crafts stalls often accepted into other markets to fluff out numbers are completely out of the question. There must be no degree of separation between the food that’s being consumed, and the customers who eat it – this means that the producers themselves must be present at every market. Madi has butted heads with producers over this rule, but she stresses its importance. “Someone once said, ‘the best food experiences are the ones that give you a sense of place and people,’ and they’re absolutely right. Most people think that they arrive and the produce is there – they don’t really understand the story behind it. It was always about the producer for us, the face of Farm Gate Market.” The benefits of supporting local producers are manifold. Farm Gate turns over around $5 million per year, which is channelled straight back into the local community. The market encourages sustainable smallscale production and minimal food miles. But for Madi, the community-building aspects of Farm Gate far outstrip any monetary or environmental rewards. “It took me a good couple of years to realise the impact that this market had on families and community. It was actually really flooring for me, because I’m always head down, bum up, let’s get the job done, and my husband said to me one day, ‘Stop! Have you ever stopped in that market and just looked around and listened

for five minutes?’ And I did, and I was so thrilled.” Tasmania’s island geography has been capitalised on in terms of branding, but this is only the beginning of the state’s natural advantages. From the abundance of natural resources, to its cool, temperate climate, to its pristine air and water, Tasmania lends itself to those boutique industries represented at Farm Gate. As Madi says, Tassie is a ripe cherry, waiting to be plucked. “There seems to be so much promise here, and so many opportunities for growth. I’m certainly leading the charge!” As Farm Gate gains a nation-wide reputation as one of the few authentic farmers’ markets left in Australia, Madi has begun to invest in interstate marketing: “We’ve achieved something really substantial and I feel like it’s time to share that now with the rest of Australia, when they come down.” By far the most major development in the pipeline for Farm Gate, however, is its impending relocation. The market, which currently sets up in a car park two blocks out of Hobart’s CBD, will soon move to Bathurst St in the city centre. The Hobart City Council Aldermen voted unanimously in support of the move, which will involve the shutting of major arterial road each Sunday – a testament, in itself, to just how much Hobart loves Farm Gate.

“Tassie is a ripe cherry, waiting to be plucked.”

Farm Gate Market 9am-1pm every Sunday 49 Melville St, Hobart, TAS 7000 farmgatemarket.com.au 7

- profile -

5

minutes

with...

THE FACES OF FARM GATE: TWO GROWERS & A COOK WHO ARE GETTING BACK TO BASICS

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- profile -

paulette whitney (provenance growers) What do you do? I grow produce and edible plants in a chemical free garden in Southern Tasmania, for restaurants and Farm Gate Market in Hobart. Tell us about your typical weekend... I make pancakes for my kids on a Saturday morning, then we come out in the garden and harvest and pack plants for the market until dark. I’m at the market on Sunday from 6.30 until 2. What’s your best-seller? It changes through the seasons, because we grow so many different things. Tomato seedlings do really well; over winter we sell heaps of kale - but people buy everything! What’s the most rewarding part of what you do? I like selling someone a great big box of food or veggie seedlings and knowing they’ll be well-fed for the week to come If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? I’d be doing this, I think. [laughs] But I used to cut hair, and I’ve just starting writing. My first column in Gourmet Traveller comes out next week.

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- profile -

chris hortle (the potato man) What do you do? I’m a skin and hide merchant by trade and I look after a series of meatworks on the mainland. I expanded my root vegetable growing to supplement my income after the GFC. Tell us about your typical weekend... I start packing the truck at 6am on Saturday morning, which takes most of the day. I leave my house in Geeveston at 6.45pm and arrive in Hobart around 8.30pm, then the stall takes 12 hours to set up - I unload about 5 tonnes of produce by myself. My staff start at 8am on Sunday, the bell goes at 9am, then after the market finishes it takes 2 hours to pack up. I get the truck back home and then I drink half a bottle of scotch. [laughs] What’s your best-seller? Rhubarb, carrots, onions & potatoes What’s the most rewarding part of what you do? My potato children - I’ve met couples buying their potatoes from me over the years, and next minute they’re having a baby. And then the little kidlets are helping Mum put potatoes in the bags, and stealing a carrot and grinning... that’s quite dear. I also give four or five hundred kilos of produce to Second Bite each week. And serving old ladies! If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? Lying on a warm beach in Queensland sucking Coronas, probably.

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- profile -

nick cummins (urban bounty) What do you do? I have a stall at Farm Gate Market selling specialty pies and sausage rolls. I also supply some retailers with pastries during the week, and do function catering. Tell us about your typical weekend... Well, if I’m doing sausage rolls, Saturday is spent preparing for the market. My last lot of cooking finishes at about 11 or 12pm, and then I get up at about 5am on Sunday, and go and finish packing the van. I arrive down at the market at about 6am. It takes a couple of hours to get the stall set up, and then I start heating the pies and sausage rolls and filling the pie-warmers. Staff arrive at 8.30, and we start serving people at 9am. The market finishes at 1, and we pack it all down - that takes about an hour and a half. Then we drive back to the kitchen, unpack and clean, and that’s the day. What’s your best-seller? The pork, quince & apple sausage roll What’s the most rewarding part of what you do? The regular customers who we see all the time, who really appreciate the product. And being able to offer something that’s child-friendly, and makes kids happy. Because they’re the hardest ones to keep happy at the market! If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing? I’d probably be more of a traditional chef in a restaurant.

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- feature 01 The Apple Shed’s floating apple wall

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- feature 02 -

appl e i s le WILLIE SMITHS’ APPLE SHED BRINGS THE HISTORY OF THE HUON VALLEY BACK TO LIFE

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he honouring of more than two centuries of family history and inheritance is unmistakeable as soon as you walk into Willie Smiths’ Apple Shed, a forty-minute drive from Hobart in the fertile Huon Valley. The Apple Shed is a cellar door for the Smiths orchard, which is just across the road. A refitted apple packing shed, which opened in December last year, the Apple Shed acts as a public face for Willie Smiths Cider, with a bar, restaurant and museum, artisan products available, and Sunday Sessions featuring popup food vendors and live music on the first Sunday of every month. Andrew Smith, currently at the helm of the Tasmanian cider house, is a fourth-generation apple grower. Even the name of the cider, taking after Andrew’s convict-descended great-grandfather William Smith, draws on the crucial, irresistible family history that is built into 13

Willie Smiths’ branding. Venue manager Michelle Crawford explains the Willie Smiths appeal: “[Willie Smiths] is a whole package. It’s got the history, it’s got the flavour, it’s got the organics. It’s good marketing.” It was diversifying their product, in order to be at the very forefront of the recent cider boom, that allowed Willie Smiths to thrive during a period where much of Tasmania’s historic apple growing industry was in collapse. Willie Smiths carved

out a niche as the first organic cider available in Australia and have been stunned by the booming demand for their apples and apple products. The Huon Valley has been the heart of Tasmania’s apple growing industry since the early 19th century, and, in keeping with this, the Apple Shed incorporates a museum section, displaying the old ways of the industry and the legacy of generations of the Smiths’ orchard. As Andrew told the Sunday Tasmanian in December: “Out the front of the museum is an 14