Farmgate to open in Gordon

WHILE on a trip to Canberra, Susanna McPherson dropped into a farmgate store.

Loving the way it operated, supporting the area’s food producers and getting healthy, fresh, local ingredients to family tables, she was inspired to launch a similar initiative once she returned home to Gordon.

Encouraging residents to back the idea, a strong core committee of community members came together. Now known as not-for-profit Gordon Farmgate, they’re champions of farmers and food brands within a 60-kilometre radius of the township, set to sell their products online and in-store.

Amanda Watters is the initiative’s management committee secretary, volunteer coordinator, and more recently the manager of the Gordon Farmgate shopfront, opening soon beside Gordon Bleu on the corner of Main and Russell streets.

“In the next two weeks, we’re hoping to launch our online click-and-collect shop. The producer will get the order and deliver the products to the shop for collection,” she said.

“When the shop’s open, the online store will still run, but people will be able to come in to browse and buy during our opening hours, which will be limited as we’re volunteers, and want to fit in with Gordon Bleu traffic.

“At the moment, we’re sticking with simplicity because we’re small. We’ll start with one producer per item; so one egg producer, one pork producer, one honey producer for example.”

Gordon Farmgate will stock Big Jim’s Chilli Co, Egg-erton Free Range Eggs, Enbom Honeys, Goldfields Farmhouse Cheese, Hendersons Lane beef and lamb, Karon Farm Coffee, Kucina Estate Garlic, Loganberry Forest seeds and seedlings, Sunny Patch Produce vegetables, The Farming Mums seasonal produce, The Fermentary, and The Harvest and Co mushrooms.

Ms Watters said the café-adjacent location of the shop means people can enjoy a coffee in the morning, or a wine in the evening, then drop by the Farmgate for essentials.

“It will hopefully bring more people to town, and get local and tourist traffic to visit all of Gordon’s shops while they’re here, like Whole Wattle Love, the Hat Shoppe, the trout farm, and our B&Bs.

“It’s all about community spirit and supporting those who are here. People can walk down, get the meat or eggs they need, rather than going to Ballarat or Ballan,” she said.

“Environmentally speaking, it reduces the food’s footprint which is really important. Grab a coffee, stop to chat, and come and see who we are.”

Last weekend, volunteers attended a working bee to develop a vegetable patch and herb garden out the front of the shop.

In the next few weeks, Ms Watters expects the space to be all painted, cleaned and fitted out with fridges.

She encourages people to get in touch if they have old wooden produce crates they would be willing to donate, or if they would like to become a volunteer shop-runner.

Visit facebook.com/gordonfarmgate or instagram.com/gordon_farmgate.