How Farmer's markets can save the day

"They turned to farmers’ markets to cut out the middle man and quickly realised it gave them direct access to market feedback."

The Weekly Times

Here's an inspiring story arising from my annual marmalade making marathon.

Last year when it was marmalade time I discovered, quite by chance that the stall selling citrus fruit in Eltham Farmers' Market (every Sunday had Seville oranges. So I bought a box of them and made my marmalade. This year I was a bit more proactive and started checking when they would be available and sort of reserving a box. I was given an email contact and got a prompt response to my email ordering a box. So this weekend I picked up my 12kg bag of Seville oranges - and am now cooking my first batch of marmalade for the week.

When I had asked about reserving some I was given the card of the business with the email address by the very friendly guy in charge - who I now think is the family patriarch Lex. From this I found that their company name was Kingfisher Citrus. Today when faced with my usual dilemma of what to write about I thought I would investigate. And it's really quite inspiring.

The first thing I discovered, when I got the card that the business is based in Narrung. Where's that you may ask? Well it's near Swan Hill up on the Murray River - a six hour drive for the family from there to Melbourne. Which they do every weekend. How can this be effective you wonder? Well apparently it's the thing that saved their business really. The picture at the top of the page is the family - mother and father, two sons and their wives and children. And from the video on their website. - shown below - it looks like they are all involved

The family has been growing citrus since 1938 up there on the Murray where most of Australia's citrus fruit is grown. Initially, and indeed for many years - most of their history really - they grew for export and just navels and valencia oranges.

Then came the perfect storm of our ten year drought and the GFC. Disaster loomed and so there was a family conference and they drew up a new business plan. They decided to diversify into other kinds of citrus, and also into other crops such as pumpkins, garlic and avocados. I have even discovered that they grow finger limes - so I'm going to look into that. Another major feature of their renewed business was to focus on farmers' markets, cutting out the middleman. Here they get feedback from customers which has also led to them becoming sustainable and organic - they haven't quite got the certificate, but there are no fungicides or pesticides and no waxing. The full story is actually much better told in a 2016 article in The Weekly Times when they were finalists in the Coles Weekly Times Farmer of the Year Awards in the FARM Magazine Innovative farmer of the year. They didn't win, but there were only three contenders in the final so they must have beaten a heck of a lot of competition to even get that far. Here is the link to the article. Weekly Times 2016

Diversification was a brave thing to do because it actually meant uprooting roughly a third of their trees, and pruning the rest very heavily. Then, of course, there would be the replanting and all of this must have taken time. Now they have another farm much further south in Gippsland where they are making jams and pickles as well as growing cool climate citrus and avocados to help them have something to sell all year.

The family now sells at 22 farmers' markets around Victoria, including our own. That's a lot of travelling and division of labour. They always seem to have a regular stream of customers at their stall where they sell their fruit, orange juice, freshly squeezed and their range of jams and pickles. Oh yes - they grow mulberries and make mulberry jam. Next idea - silkworms?

Well long may they prosper. They now have a farm gate shop and online ordering, as well as the farmers' markets. Another Ozzie company that is basically a family business, working hard and doing good things in food.

First batch of marmalade done. Probably three more to go!