St Vincent's nurses are more than grateful for Kialla Pure Food gesture

As panic buying and stock piling grips the nation, and more people have time on their hands to bake, the owners of Kialla Pure Foods, near East Greenmount, decided to make a special delivery to ensure these front line heroes too, could enjoy some home baking delights.

The idea was initiated and organised by owners Michelle and Quentin Kennedy, so they loaded the pallets of pancake mix, self-raising and plain flour onto Quentin's ute and he delivered them personally.

Mr Kennedy said that his wife Michelle has a sister who is a nurse and the Sunshine Coast, and as they couldn't do much for her, our near neighbour is Kathryn McKeefry who is the general manager at St. Vincent's, so it went from there.

"We loaded up the ute with the products and it was placed in the staff room at the hospital for all to access and enjoy," Mr Kennedy said.

"It was warmly received as I believe and I believe has all gone.

"We as a company see that this is the right thing to do under these circumstances, as these people are working long hours -on the front line - and looking after the sick."

Kialla Pure Foods is a popular producer of GMO free, organic products including baking flour, specialty flour and premixes.

Mr Kennedy said his company was under the pump to keep up supplies for the retail sector.

"We received funding last year to upgrade our current blending system by installing a new mixer and packaging system at the Greenmount-based mill," he said

"With an new automated packing system, we are able to pack our mixes into either one litre bottles for our very successful 'Shake and Pour' pancake mixes or into doy bag resealable stand-up pouches which are currently in high demand in retail outlets.

"The new mixer allows for effective clean downs between runs, allowing us to avoid cross contamination between products which is highly important when working with organic materials.

"It also has a additional critical control points that will assist in ensuring any foreign contaminants will be removed."

Two weeks ago, Kialla Pure Foods moved to double shifts to process and pack their products destined for the retail sector, and without this new automated system they would not have been able to handle the volume or demand.

"March has certainly been our biggest month for retail and we attribute it to the fact people have now time to bake at home, and some panic buying," he said.

"Kialla Pure Foods currently sources its grain from 30 farmers located across the Darling Downs and to the north around Theodore, Springsure, Emerald and Capella.