Honouring the food that gives you life
Recently (again?) there have been questions asked about the constrained food supply system dominated by The Duopoly we have here in Australia. Thankfully we don't play in that game. One of our key customers is a leader in the real food, whole animal, nose to tail, ethical omnivore space, and asked their supplying farmers for our thoughts on supermarkets and why we don't supply them.
This was our response.
Honouring the food that gives you life
(Why we partner with Feather + Bone)
We are micro producers, tiny in the overall scheme of the Industrial Food Complex, not even a blip on that radar screen. When we left the city and commenced growing food for our community 17 years ago, we were adamant it would be through some direct marketing model.
Standing at the farm gate waving goodbye to your production not knowing the end user was not something we were interested in. Growing, packaging, transporting and marketing foodstuffs that you’ve laboured over for months, seasons, nigh, years is difficult enough without the buyer arguing about the price, colour, size, or some other measure, once they receive your produce.
We were determined to find our tribe – people who would appreciate our toil and the love of what we do and why we do it; folk that understood why us having a hand in virtually every aspect of getting our animals to their table was important. Why pigs running through paddocks and rolling in mud was beneficial; why letting sows build grass nests to farrow (give birth) in was how it needed to be.
Laura and Grant and their Feather and Bone team are the leaders of that tribe. Honouring the food that gives you life, and those that provide it, increases the value of that food and hence the nourishment it provides. Viewing it simply as fuel for your body is more in line with the Coleworths offering.
With the advent of social media and AI generated newsletters, society’s interest in stories has become voracious, quick and to some extent, superficial, disposable. However, the stories behind the food you eat and the connection that provides - how, where and why it was grown, how you sourced it, how it was prepared and cooked, and by whom - are all part of the fabric that builds culture, and food is the very basis of that, continually evolving.
Sharing those stories, whether gathered around a table with friends and family, or over a quick snack at the kitchen bench, will always be one of life’s simple pleasures, and it gives us great joy to play a small part in that.
www.featherandbone.com.au