Farm boxes the trick to avoiding supermarket grocery lines

With most Queenslanders only allowed to go outside for the essentials, here’s how to skip the long lines at the grocery store.

Forget supermarket queues for your groceries, instead buy from your local farmers and producers – that’s the message from the organisers of this year’s Eat Local Week.

For the second year in a row the foodie festival supporting Queensland’s Scenic Rim agricultural and culinary scene has been hit by Covid, with dozens of events cancelled or postponed.

But with hundreds of farmers and producers within the region from Tamborine Mountain through Boonah and Beaudesert relying on the event for sales, organisers are rolling out a special farm box, filled with everything from beef and bacon to beer and beetroot.

“For a lot of the producers [Eat Local Week] is their biggest sales event of the year so this [farm box] is a great way while we can’t get out and about to still show our support for our farmers and producers,” Scenic Rim Regional Council’s Brenda Walker said of the box, which is available for purchase online with delivery to Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba and Ipswich.

Scenic Rim Mayor Greg Christensen with the Scenic Rim Farm Box.

“All of the feedback we get [about the box] is that people are astounded by the depth of the offering, the quality, the freshness … it’s not just your standard food box.”

Ms Walker said sales of the gourmet offering would also be a much needed financial lifeline for the producers who were preparing to sell their wares at this Saturday’s Winter Harvest Festival event in Kalbar, which was cancelled at the last minute for Covid safety.

“They were gearing up to have up to 15,000 people through the gates on Saturday so we’re talking thousands of dollars worth of stuff that’s been produced that was just getting ready to be served up. To make sure that isn’t just going to go to waste or not be able to be sold, these avenues are critical,” Ms Walker said.

The Scenic Rim Farm Box can be purchased online or ordered through the Scenic Rim Farm Shop in Kalbar.

Meanwhile, Queenslanders are still being encouraged to head into the region once the lockdown lifts on Friday night, with a number of the events including camel farm tours, beer lunches and wine tastings still scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday.