Market forces: Fresh to your door

TASMANIA’S small-time vegie tycoons are joining forces to better take on the big guys – it’s what consumers want.

BYLINE - LUKE BOWDEN: Greg Woodward from Backyard Bounty packing fresh vegetables for his customers.

LAST week I looked at amalgamations among small retailers. Further down the retail chain – among the micro-traders in the grassroots – it’s not so much a case of joining up as overlapping and helping each other out.

You may be a vegetable grower who is one of the 120 members of the Huon Producers Network, in which case you will be able to sell your produce on the network’s stall at the weekly farmers’ market in Geeveston.

Or you might offer it to Greg and Aimee Woodward, who make up vegie boxes to deliver to about 120 people a week in greater Hobart.

Should Greg miscalculate and find himself with too many pumpkins, he can always post on the Tassie Farms – Fresh to You Facebook group, where one of the 5000 members will put their hand up to buy them.

And Fork to Fork, a project of Sprout Tasmania, has run a successful crowd-funding exercise to set up an online produce market to provide more links for small producers.

The idea is that cafe owners, chefs, small shops and food-box organisers will be able to buy, say, garlic, cheese and apples from three producers, but pay one bill and receive one delivery.

It is hoped Fork to Fork will start in Hobart by September.

Sprout Tasmania has set up an online market linking small producers directly to buyers. From left are Sprout Tasmania CEO Alice Percy, Huon Producers Network president Trev Wittmer, project manager Erika Avellaneda Celis and Ethos chef Iain Todd.

Tassie Farms was started last August as a response to a farmer having to bury carrots too big for supermarket specifications.

It was a response but not a solution – that farmer had 150 tonnes of carrots, but such social media, market and box schemes do help the producers too small to register on a supermarket’s radar.

And increasingly, these ways of shopping suit customers.

Jen Collins, one of the Tassie Farms volunteer administrators, says there are more buyers than sellers in the group. Huon Producers’ Network aims to help Huon landholders generate income. Members can take advantage of bulk buys of compost, cloche hoops and such, and learn.

Its president Trev Wittmer says training courses start from the end. “You tell us how much yield in money you want, and we will be able to work out how much you need to plant and what area you need,” he said.

“We have got a spreadsheet that will give you your succession planting and the spacing that you will put everything in.”

I met Trev at tiny Geeveston Farmers Market. “We stand around at markets like this and we talk – about pH levels, slopes, microclimates,” he said.

“We hope people will come away with the confidence and the tools to at least start.”

Cassy Faux and Katie Devenish set up Geeveston Farmers Market at the beginning of the year. There are other markets in the Huon but no other that is held every week.

Warwick Hastwell of Dover Bay Mussels has customers who buy their kilo of mussels every week and don’t even cast an eye at other stalls. Mark Ladner sells his Woody Glen preserves made with produce from his own garden and also sells excess vegetables at the Huon Valley Network stall, which includes Treasuremore bakery.

Cassy is a scientific photographer and works at the Antarctic Division. She also runs Harvest and Light catering from Geeveston. Like her, the Woodwards have to be more than “vegetable tycoons” at Backyard Bounty to make a living. Greg is also a cellist, conductor and teacher and Aimee a full-time teacher.

On Sundays they plan what will be in the next Backyard Bounty box. Orders close at 5pm on Mondays, and on Tuesdays Greg begins making calls to growers – small and large.

“We need reliability and consistency of supply,” Greg said. “If we are offering alternatives to ‘Colesworth’ we have to be just as reliable and offer a comparable price.”

The boxes are packed on Thursday and Friday and then delivered. Customers do not get to choose what goes into their boxes (although they can ban vegies they can’t abide).

“We try to make each week’s box interesting and different, with a good balance of things, including the familiar and unfamiliar,” Greg said.

The business began as a preserves stall at Farmgate Market and swerved off to boxes about 18 months ago. The customer list has been built up solely by word of mouth and through the Facebook page.