Meet the Finalists - Building Capability
Building Capability is a phrase and a practice with many applications.
The Building Capability Award recognizes food and fibre businesses that have demonstrated how and what they are doing to build capability across various aspects of their operations.
This includes service to their industry; a commitment to market and promote Gippsland to a national and international audience, as well striving to be an employer of choice through a positive workplace culture. They’re achieving this by leveraging their brand to drive greater awareness of Gippsland produce, while also enticing people to experience the region’s friendly hospitality in its lively and diverse food and drink scene. They’re building collaborative partnerships and they’re fostering a local food culture where trusted provenance is king.
The four finalists in this award are: Burra Brewing Company, Gurneys Cider, Flooding Creek Fungi and The Prom Coast Food collective.
About Burra Brewing Company
Located in the main street of Korumburra in South Gippsland, The Burra Brewing Company has cemented itself as one of Gippsland’s leading breweries and one of the region’s major tourist drawcards, producing a wide range of craft beers and wood fired pizza. Their biggest project since opening is the expansion of their brewing and fermenting facilities, allowing them additional capacity to meet increased market demands for the coming summer.
Brewer Phil Dempster - hard at work!
The demands and business pressure of the global pandemic, they were forced to streamline their kitchen processes and in cutting their menu back to mostly pizza, they reduced their waste dramatically. They were able to incorporate a value add dessert option for their customer base by collaborating with local producer, Prom Coast Ice Cream - introducing a new item with minimal risk of waste.
In a growing craft beer market, the facilities expansion will help them continue on their projected growth path over the coming years, with the base infrastructure allowing further expansion if and as required. This extra capacity means they maintain their current placements, have confidence in building new markets, and importantly, don’t miss out on sales!
With an outdoor renovation to provide improved seating, they’ll also be well placed to capitalise on the foot and bike traffic created by the construction of rail trail and outdoor recreation areas build by the South Gippsland Shire.
Doubling their packaged beer output gives the team confidence in having higher stock levels to establish a wider supply chain throughout Greater Gippsland and into urban Melbourne.
About Gurneys Cider
Gurneys Cider specialise in small batch ciders, made on site at their farm and cellar door on the Fish Creek to Foster Road Gippsland.
Building capability is intrinsically linked to their quest to become completely carbon neutral by 2025, building a sustainable business model to ensure local producers and associated businesses can also benefit from their growth, directly and indirectly through tourism and increased visitor numbers.
Their continued growth means they’re able to offer employment to many locals on a permanent and casual basis, and local orchardists have a reliable market for a portion of their harvest every year. They hope to encourage local farmers and small landholders to grow more fruit crops that Gurneys could purchase at market rate. This is a win for continued trust in local provenance, as well as an opportunity for landholders to diversify an/or add a new income stream.
Their cider maker is always keen to try new styles and varieties, fostering collaborations with a local winery to produce a range of wine/ cider hybrids like Cider piquettes, and with their small scale operations, they have the flexibility to promote local producers through their unique bottle labels.
The Gurnett family is passionate about minimising food waste and one great example of this is a relationship built with a local, organic, free range pork farmer in nearby Fish Creek who feeds the apple pomace to their pigs and other farm animals. Their pork products are then featured in food platters at the cellar door, creating a very local circular economy.
With demand for their product rapidly growing, their new production shed due for completion in 2022 will allow them to produce 250,000 litres per year - exciting times ahead.
About Prom Coast Food Collective
The Prom Coast Food Collective is made up of a dynamic group of predominately Gippsland organic and regenerative farmers and makers who collaborate to sell produce and goods via an online platform for home delivery across Gippsland and into Melbourne, as well as pick up in Meeniyan. With control over their own stock and its price, the farmer / maker / producer receives 90 cents in the dollar for all goods sold.
Running since April 2017, the year where they were taking around $8,000 in sales per month, the growth has been impressive and in 2020, they returned over $1 million back to the participating farmers in the region, delivered almost State wide, taking an average of $18,000 a week in sales.
Described as Feisty and Female Farmer led, founders Amelia Bright and Sally Ruljancich say their uniqueness lies in their unparalleled commitment to support small scale organic farming families’ ability to become price makers not price takers.
Building on their success to date, their commitment to building capability is unwavering, with plans to establish a permanent packing space and warehouse with associated distribution logistics in Meeniyan, South Gippsland. They’ll continue to onboard more local farmers and makers from across Gippsland and plan to establish an ongoing workshop series to “Grow the Growers” - encouraging knowledge sharing of experiences and processes.
Prom Coast Food Collective
About Flooding Creek Fungi
Flooding Creek Fungi produces quality fresh gourmet and medicinal mushrooms that are currently stocked at various farmgate shops and local stores around Gippsland as well as being featured on the menus at many local restaurants and eateries. Their unique range is not found anywhere else in Gippsland, producing nine different varieties throughout different times of the year.
Josef - Flooding Creek Fungi
Within the first 18 months, the family owned and operated business secured a strong foot hold in the gourmet mushroom market and with their existing infrastructure they have reached capacity of approximately 100 kilos of fresh mushrooms grown per month. A new shed is in the process of being built that will feature dual grow rooms, increasing their capacity by 400% , giving greater control over environmental factors and allowing them to further diversify their range.
The Sestokas family thrive on collaborative partnerships and are always hungry for new ideas and ways to work with other businesses, in their home shire of Wellington and across the entire Gippsland region. They market their product range as truly Gippsland grown and harvested - it is Gippsland Trusted Provenance at its finest.
The Flooding Creek Fungi team is passionate about their products and encouraging people to engage in the consumption of a sustainable and healthy local product. They are active in sharing information, knowledge and advice in a range of community forums and even run workshops to show people how to grow their own mushrooms at home.
They believe knowledge sharing and resource collaboration is crucial to everyone’s ability to grow together and build Gippsland’s profile as a regional renowned for exceptional produce.
