Eat Drink West is linking producers to consumers

KATE Davis’ toastie tasting tale illustrates her commitment to and collaboration with Ballarat’s chefs, cooks, producers and consumers.

A couple driving up from Melbourne to undertake eating toasties during Plate Up Ballarat in May, contacted Ms Davis asking if 1816 Bakery was open.

When she told them unfortunately not due to a power failure, the couple’s next request was to try the Winner Winner toastie.

“Which of course, due to Murphy’s law, had just opened and hadn’t received its bread delivery,” she said. “So, I got the bread from 1816 Bakery, ran it up the street to Winner Winner and the visitors had the amazing experience they were hoping for, tasting six different toasties on the day.”

Ms Davis, founder of Plate Up Ballarat, said the month-long food festival was a great success.

But once it was over in May the conversation on food producers and hospitality venues began to dry up.

“However, the chefs and cooks started asking for more producers to contact,” she said. “This gave us the impetus to establish Eat Drink West, a platform that can support local growers and producers and the chefs and cooks that support them?”

Eat Drink West website, launched last week, is not just a landing page, it lists producer details and stockists and it links back to each individual producer’s website.

It is the other side of the coin from Plate Up Ballarat.

Restaurants and hospitality venues pay a fee to be take part in the annual food festival while food producers and growers pay to be listed on Eat Drink West.

Café Sidra owners Belinda Brooksby and Allan Penhall took part in Plate Up in May.

As the café is also the cellar door for locally made 321 Cider, Ms Brooksby said they are thrilled to register on Eat Drink West as well as Plate Up as it showcases the regionality of both endeavours.

“The new platform informs restaurants, cafes, bottle shops about our organically grown and small batch cider made here in Learmonth,” Ms Brooksby said. “It also links us to other suppliers so we can source local products to use in the cafe’s meals.”

The unique value proposition for producers is the database of cafes, restaurants and food venues who can access the Eat Drink West site.

Judy Crough, Western Plains Pork Marketing Director, was one of the first suppliers to sign up to the new initiative.

She said joining was a great way of connecting and getting the business’s name out to restaurants, cafes and people looking for product.

“This is so much easier than doing it myself, when we first started direct selling, I would walk the streets and knock on doors,” Ms Cough said. “It’s amazing to have all this happening regionally.”

Check out Eat Drink West’s new website at eatdrinkwest.com.au.