AMID the lush Sunshine Coast Hinterland a slow food movement is rapidly gaining momentum.
In the countdown to the 4th annual Maleny Real Food Festival, organiser Julie Shelton’s dream is well and truly a reality.
Wind the clock back a few years and Julie could be found tending to chickens or collecting honey from beehives on her organic farm near Connondale.
Their grassy Blackall Range operation was small but diverse - dairy and beef cattle, pigs, bees and chickens all coexisted harmoniously in the glorious commune.
Cheese was carefully crafted, salamis sumptuously seasoned and meats smoked on site – all retailed in her on-farm shop.
But Julie said she started her farm journey with a single question in mind: “What is the best food we can produce for ourselves, our customers, and our friends?”
Instead of opting for the traditional farming model – small varieties of produce, siphoned through various middle-men, destined for mass markets – Julie reversed the pyramid.
“We had a very large number of products that we produced for a small number of people,” she said.
“So we didn’t have distribution hassles, but we had this very diversified and intensive organic farm.”
Despite her isolation from mainstream markets, Julie noticed that the customers were beginning to seek out her niche products.
“Demand was outstripping supply, because we were producing very high quality and nutrient-dense food,” she said.
Determined to further investigate the viabilities of small scale agriculture, Julie was awarded the Churchill Fellowship to research similar scenarios across the globe.
She travelled throughout the USA, Ireland, the UK, France and Italy to investigate regulatory impediments to artisanal food production and explore initiatives that nourish relationships between producers and consumers.
She discovered that consumers are becoming more inquisitive in general about the origins of their food.
“We are still seeing monoculture production that services the big supermarket chains and that will always be there, but more and more people are turning to good food and food with a story,” she said.
Adamant that the archaic calories in, calories out message is losing touch with modern consumers, Julie believes people just want to know “is this good for me, and is it supporting my community?”
Returning to Australia with a rumbling hunger to re-connect urban Australians with their farmers, Julie’s brainchild was spawned.
Julie could see an abundance of like-minded farmers all around her producing amazing food, but in relatively small quantities, going under the radar.
“A lot of people are so head down bum up producing, that they aren’t very good at marketing,” she said.
“Most farmers are so humble that they are terrible at self-promotion.”
After endless meetings, Julie nervously launched the first Maleny Real Food Festival in 2011, with a staunch emphasis on the paddock end of the food chain.
Initiated as a one day only event, the inaugural celebration was to be held on a Sunday.
“When we first launched the festival, there was this really worrying time. I knew it was my dream, but I was so scared no one else was going to show up,” Julie recalled.
Despite her concerns, 4000 people flooded through the gates.
“We were just hammered, in a very delightful way.”
Still enthralled by the magic of the festival, Julie and the Real Food Festival team this year hopes to host 10,000 guests.
For the next couple of months in preparation for the event Julie will be eating, drinking, sleeping and breathing the Real Food Festival – something that doesn’t phase her one bit.
“Some mornings when I wake up I actually have to pinch myself, because to me, this is the best job in the whole world,” she said.
- The Real Food Festival will be held September 13-14. For more information visit realfoodfestivals.com.au.
Kitchen connect
WHISKED away with the notion to bring good food to the fore, Spicers Clovelly head chef Cameron Mathews immediately jumped on board the Real Food Festival team.
“I think chefs these days have lost touch a little bit with food, and with the producers,” he said.
“I would really like to see the connection through produce, so people know where it is from.”
At Spicers Clovelly, Cameron sources free-range grass-fed poultry and eggs direct from Walker Farm Foods in Connondale.
“The eggs taste like eggs and the chicken tastes like chicken. Most people think that is obvious, but it really isn’t anymore,” he said.
“Nine times out of ten chickens taste watery and bland now.”
You would be forgiven to think that a chef like Mathews could make a wet sock taste great, but in fact he credits flavour to simple combinations using honest food.
“With quality products you can salt them and cook them and they taste amazing. It isn’t rocket science,” he said.
“It all comes down to how the food is produced.”