We have made a big decision that kicks in this week and for the first time since we started Gathered in 2016 will be offering fresh produce that is not strictly organic. This decision has been made for a few reasons and hopefully you will continue to support us as we start down this road.
At Gathered, we believe that a strong local food network is essential for community wellbeing and resilience, as we all learned through Covid times. Up until now, we have always only sourced organic fresh produce and prioritised local where it’s available, supplementing with organic produce from further afield which sometimes means interstate. This is crazy and it hasn’t sat well with us to be supporting a food system that involves ridiculous transport distances and a disconnect from the people who grow the food. As such, we have decided that supporting local growers doing their best to grow well within the constraints they have is much better than bringing in organic produce from the other side of the country.
Another reason for doing this is financial viability. It is near impossible to sell enough organic produce to cover costs in a small town. After watching a number of other business like ours around Australia and the world make this same decision over the last few years, we have finally followed suite and hope it’s a good one!
The final big reason is product range. It is really hard to offer a wide range of seasonal fruit and veg from only a handful of organic growers. By dropping the self imposed restriction of selling only organic produce, we will be able to provide many more options, especially fruit.
We’re starting small, bringing in some cauliflower and squash from George Wren who doesn’t use any herbicides, only a pesticide that is an accepted input in certified organic farming and commercial fertilizers, but even then only low rates of a custom blend. George’s produce will have all this info made obvious in the shop, so you can know what is completely organic and what is not.
As the range of non-organic produce expands in the shop, it will always be made clear how the produce was grown and what inputs were used. Thanks so much for your understanding and support.
Someone in our found family passed away unexpectedly last week. She was just shy of her 49th birthday and leaves behind a life partner in Mark and their four children. Gathered wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Andrea and I’m yet to figure out how to continue without her.
When Gathered first started, before it even had a name, it was just Jema growing veg from a small plot and me rounding up a few local families who took whatever she dropped off. The whole operation was run from our backyard, leaving boxes for families in the carport once a week. Because peak growing season is in the warmer months and there was no refrigeration, Jema would harvest at the end of her work day, dropping the veg off around 9pm to pack into what started as around 10 boxes, but very quickly expanded into more as word got out. I had a small child and non-sleeping baby at the time and Andrea had four very young children of her own.
Andrea was already a close friend as well as one of the families getting a veg box, and noticing the amount of work involved offered to help. Me, being all stoic and terrible at accepting help declined the offer, so Andrea just turned up one night when she knew Jema was stopping by, told me where I could stick my protests and set to work. Sometimes we were still packing boxes until 2am and she kept coming.
And that was it. She turned up every week and when we relocated Gathered to Burton Road she was there too, only stepping away once we had taken on staff and could carry on without her. As Gathered has grown, relocated again and changed direction, she has been there every step of the way, shoving herself in to help where I’ve needed her most, never waiting to be asked and often behind the scenes or supporting our kids with the long hours we put in at the farm. She has always just been there, never expecting a thing in return.
This is just one part of how our lives were tied up with each other and I am only one person of many who were in her orbit. At the farm alone, she was known and loved by our staff, the homeschooling community and the many customers who she’d chat to on the front verandah or in the shop. She was the sort of person who drew others in.
Andrea, I love you, I miss you. Gathered will never be the same without you.
If you would like to contribute toward the GoFundMe campaign that’s open to raise money for Andrea’s family, please have a look…
https://www.gofundme.com/f/andrea-roche-bailey-and-family
