Buy SA Week: Celebrate and support our local producers
Look out for the things you know and love. That’s the simple philosophy behind the Buy SA. For SA. campaign – and a message local retailers are keen to champion
SA News
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Pauly Vandenbergh’s links to South Australia run deep, so it’s no surprise he’s fully committed to championing the “Buy SA. For SA” message.
A proud Wirangu and Kokatha man from Ceduna, on the state’s Far West Coast, he recently joined the Brand SA advisory board, providing a First Nations perspective on its mission to raise the profile of South Australian business products, services and experiences.
The co-founder and director of Aboriginal youth organisation Tjindu Foundation and the Aboriginal Basketball Academy, Vandenbergh is also the director of Indigenous-owned and operated businesses Wanna Mar tuna fishing and Munda Wines, as well as being the AFL’s national Indigenous and multicultural engagement manager.
“There’s no shying away that I’m there to represent First Nations people and businesses and bring that Indigenous lens to what we believe the South Australia brand is,” Vandenbergh says of his role on the Brand SA board.
“But, more broadly, I’ve really enjoyed just seeing how we’re trying to sell SA products – and us thinking about how we keep people in SA and provide opportunities for them becomes really critical.”
Vandenbergh says there’s a “nice opportunity” to promote businesses based in the regions and the remote communities, such as SA Indigenous art.
“I’d like to really highlight all the amazing companies we have in SA that are First Nations-led, such as Daniel Motlop’s (Indigenous food supplies business) Something Wild.
“There are some amazing products and industries where people are doing some really good things. That’s part of my role, too, to help magnify those.”
South Australian products will come into the spotlight during this year’s Buy SA Week, which provides an opportunity to celebrate local products during a week-long line-up of activities from July 28 to August 3.
The week will feature a mix of tastings, giveaways and cooking demonstrations at various venues throughout Adelaide and country South Australia.
Vandenbergh says Buy SA Week – first held last year – presents a fantastic chance to highlight what South Australia has to offer, including the state’s wealth of premium wine, which produces 80 per cent of the volume nationally.
Buying SA also contributes enormously to the state’s bottom line, with merchandise exports totalling $17.8bn annually.
“When people choose South Australian produce, products and services, they’re not just getting great quality; they’re supporting local people, keeping money in SA, as well as reducing environmental impacts, with less freight and higher production standards,” Vandenbergh says. “We’ve got some really amazing products here in South Australia – not just First Nations, but right across the board. And, coming from the wine industry, I think we’re definitely spoiled in that sector.”
At present 10,800 South Australian businesses have registered to use the state brand on their products, to help customers to easily identify locally produced goods.
However, with more than 150,000 businesses in operation across key sectors in SA – including creative, defence, minerals and energy, food, wine and agribusiness, health, technology, tourism and space – Vandenbergh urges more businesses to come on board and fly the Brand SA flag.
“I love South Australia,” he says. “I love what we stand for. I feel it is a land of opportunity but we need to – and can – better promote what we’ve got to offer.
“The cost of living is a huge issue at the moment, but if we come together, we can make our workloads a bit easier.”
Vandenbergh’s pride in helping foster the state’s economic future is obvious.
“Aboriginal people in South Australia refer to ourselves as Nungas,” he says. “So I’m a proud Nunga – a proud South Australian.
“I just love what the state is and what it has to offer, and I’d just encourage everyone to buy South Australian products, which is really important for us all.”
For more visit buysa.sa.gov.au
Evolution bringing potential to life
Pauly Vandenbergh is excited about the evolving potential of his two commercial produce-related enterprises.
Wanna Mar – which means “sea food” in Wirangu language – was established in 2019 with assistance of the Stehr Group in Port Lincoln, to help restore First Nations people’s connections with the sea.
“We’re only at the beginning of that journey, but we’re pretty excited about what the future could look like,” Vandenbergh says.
However, he admits the Munda Wines label – a partnership with Treasury Wines Estates – is his “real passion” at present.
“We’ve got the best wine region in the world and we’re creating beautiful wines,” he says of the Munda, label named after the Wirangu and Kokatha word for land. “We’re also helping highlight the traditional owners of where the grapes come, from which I think is really important.”
The label is beginning to make inroads into overseas markets, with orders from Canada and Malaysia, and from the Native American Chamber of Commerce, to supply several casinos in the US.
Burra merino wool in fashion around the world
Across Australia and the globe, retailers are warming to a South Australian fashion business that is created from purely local merino wool.
Emily Riggs and her family run more than 15,000 merino sheep across four properties at Burra in the state’s Mid North, and in 2019 the young designer embraced her love of merino wool and fashion by founding Iris & Wool.
“I’m married to a wool producer and fell in love with the fibre, and thought how could I contribute to the wool industry and shine a light on our wool growers? So I created a fashion brand,” she says.
Iris & Wool is stocked in Burra at the label’s shopfront, across Australia at different retailers, and even in New Zealand and the UK. Thousands of locally made Iris & Wool products are shipped around the world each year.
The brand was created after cancer struck Riggs’s family and herself from a young age. She was inspired to create a fashion label that would use Burra’s greatest export, wool, and her flair for design.
The brand’s collections have grown over time to include womenswear, menswear and childrenswear, and now embrace other luxury natural fibres. Passionate about promoting Australian merino wool, Riggs is dedicated to nurturing and supporting the local industry and community of Australian wool producers now more than ever, as country towns and farmers feel the pressures of the drought.
“It was important for the brand for people to support it locally, and obviously it’s a flow-on effect for South Australians as well,” she says.
“Buying SA helps strengthen the state’s economic resilience, which is important during drought, and with last year being the driest on record, a bit of help and support goes a long way.”
“Not only is Australia the world’s largest producer of wool, but this pure yarn is renewable, biodegradable and sustainable.”
Still nuts about Ditters
A much-celebrated South Australian icon is making a return to the Adelaide CBD, bringing the more-than 100-year-old brand into the 21st century.
Ditters, the beloved SA fruit and nut company, has been a staple of high-quality gifts and snacks since 1918, taking pride and place underneath Christmas trees and featuring at local celebrations ever since.
From its humble beginnings as a market stall by creator Otto Kurt Ditter, the company was acquired by Matt and Esther Johnson in 2019.
This month the iconic brand opens a new store in Adelaide Arcade – in the same shopfront the company occupied more than 40 years ago.
For the new owners, it was a case of tweaking the format of the business to bring it front and centre to a new generation.
“I stumbled across the idea of orphan brands at university – brands that are around when you’re young and you love them, but then they sort of disappear a bit or they become a bit invisible, or maybe in some cases totally invisible, and Ditters was one of those brands,” Matt Johnson explains.
“I thought, ‘What’s happened to it?’ It used to be huge and it’s gone’. And it hadn’t actually gone; it had just got very, very small and continued to trade.
“So we took it on about six years ago and we’ve been gradually rebuilding the product base and reviving some of the old, traditional recipes.
“We’ve re-established a production facility in Melrose Park and have been just gradually growing it to a stage where we think the next step is to establish a store in Adelaide.”
As it is a uniquely South Australian business with a rich history, Johnson says it is important to celebrate and support local producers, to employ locals and contribute to the state economy.
“It’s something that we really treasure,” he says.
“South Australians really love our own brands and the companies that have been developed here.
“I think they’re an expression of who we are. We want to kind of keep feeding that and sort of keep it in the family, if you will.
“By supporting each other, supporting local businesses and supporting people with jobs and opportunities to develop, we see a great sense of pride in what South Australia can achieve.”
As consumers become more conscious about the environment and local produce, Johnson says the local production facility in the inner south is also innovating, to minimise freight and packaging, by producing locally and selling locally.
“We’re actually making changes to our some of our product offerings at the moment to reduce our plastic significantly, and we are aggressively looking for solutions,” he says
“There’s lots and lots of homogenisation out there in products, and I think brands like ours that strive for excellence, sustainability and connect locally is what makes our state distinctive.”
As the new store opens its doors, the company – which became synonymous with glace fruit, Australian dried fruits and, of course, nuts – will continue producing its iconic gourmet cake. And for South Australians who remember the sweet treat, it literally hasn’t changed one bit.
“So, we’ve been making this same fruit and nut cake with the same recipe since the 1960s and that’s still, to this day, one of our most popular products,” Johnson says.
“We think it will be an even more popular South Australian product as we celebrate the opening of our Adelaide Arcade store.”
Connecting to the community
Since arriving in Australia from Italy, Andrea Iannucci and Elisa D’Amico have created a culinary destination that celebrates everything about the country that has embraced them.
The Bond Store Microbrewery and Distillery in Wallaroo has become a must-visit destination in the Yorke Peninsula town, offering locally brewed beers, handcrafted gins and delectable dishes all celebrating the region.
It didn’t happen overnight.
From 2013 the pair worked and travelled around Australia and the state before stumbling across their dream: A place where locals could celebrate the best of their offerings together and bring big flavours, bold ideas and a sense of pride to the small town.
“It’s definitely a point of difference being in a regional area – you wouldn’t expect a place like this,” Andrea says. “That’s probably the comment that we hear more often, that you wouldn’t expect something like this to be in Wallaroo but most likely in a city like Melbourne or Adelaide or Sydney.”
The pair’s vision has connected them to the community, focusing on the region they now call home. The use of local produce – such as grain from nearby farms to brew beer, coriander and quandongs for gin – has resulted in a winning formula.
“Supporting locals means we are supporting our community,” Elisa says.
“We’re really strong in supporting everything that is regional or from the area. Along with our food and our beers and gins, we like to get wines that are from SA because we’ve got beautiful wineries. Things like that for us make a huge difference.”
Starting their own family in Wallaroo, Andrea and Elisa look forward to welcoming even more South Australians into their restaurant, brewhouse and distillery.
“We feel a real connection with the town and South Australia by supporting those around us and in turn they support us,” Elisa says.
“Sometimes being far from Italy can feel lonely but being in a small community, we don’t feel that anymore – everyone has embraced us as part of their family.”
Originally published as Buy SA Week: Celebrate and support our local producers
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