Toowoomba’s Darling Fresh Smoke Haus celebrate four years and return to the place where it all began at FarmFest 2025

When Darling Fresh Smoke Haus first attended Toowoomba’s FarmFest they had been open for just two weeks. Now celebrating their fourth birthday the team has returned and revealed how collaboration was growing the region’s food scene.

Darling Fresh Smoke Haus co-owner and founder Jeff Schultheiss at Toowoomba FarmFest 2025.

Food has always been in the blood of Darling Fresh Smoke Haus owner Jeff Schultheiss.

Growing up in his father's food manufacturing business in Sydney, Mr Schultheiss started his career in food technology and decades later opened his own Toowoomba-based food business.

“My wife Karen and I, we are both food technologists and we have been in the food game a long time,” he said.

“I have been managing food factories for years and nine years ago I started consulting, writing food safety programs and helping people commercialise food products.

“I was mucking around in my backyard with a smoker one day and worked out how to sous vide sterilised packs of smoked meat and deliver them to customers with two minute reheats, and that’s the core of our business, wood smoked foods with no additives and ready in minutes.

“We put six products into the Australian BBQ Awards last year and our Darling Downs Dust got top five in Australia for steak, our JS#4 got top five for chicken and our barbecue sauce was a top 10 finish.”

Jeff and Karen from Darling Fresh Smoke Haus.

Mr Schultheiss, who is displaying meats, rubs and sauces at Toowoomba’s FarmFest this week, said the show holds a special place in his heart being the first event where they sold their products.

“We have just ticked over four years and at our first FarmFest we were two weeks old. We had a little stall and it wasn’t as flash as it was today but everyone’s has to start somewhere,” he said.

“FarmFest has been one of our favourite shows, we have people coming back all the time, getting so excited about all our stuff and it’s great to see the friendly faces.”

He said the Toowoomba food scene has exploded over the past few years and attributed it to people’s willingness to collaborate and learn from one another.

“We are doing a brand collaboration with Jim's Jerky and they are making the biltong using their expertise and we are doing the flavour work,” he said.

“We have a Darling Downs Dark biltong which is using locally roasted coffee from Six of One coffee roasters in town and we are also working with Toowoomba local Smokey McBBQ, he is a pit master and caterer and he's a local guy doing great things.

“We love our local collaborations, they are our neighbours and their customers are our customers, we aren't really competing we are trying to put things together where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

“It’s fun, we like dealing with local people, they are good people, Toowoomba is good like that because it is small enough you can make meaningful contacts.”