Evergrow Productions has entered an exciting new chapter with the launch of its Farm Hub Cafe, a development that builds on years of work at the business’s demonstration farm and the success of its VERTI-POTS vertical growing system.
Co owner Alison Heagney said the cafe opened on Christmas Eve last year and forms an important part of their growing, vertically integrated business model. “The cafe part of it was Christmas Eve last year. So very new. The farm hub, we call it,” she said.
The Farm Hub is closely tied to the couple’s long running focus on natural farming and practical inventions that make growing food easier for producers, families and communities. Their patented Birdie Pots, recently relaunched into the Sydney market and locally online, allow people to grow food in small spaces or without needing to bend and lift.
“It enables people to grow their own food on their balcony in the city, or for someone who’s got older and can’t vegetable farm anymore by bending down, getting up, they’ve got a vertical system they can use as well,” Alison said.
The VERTI POTS, grow tunnels, organic cloth mulch mats and other inventions are all part of a wider model that Alison and partner Steve have developed through their eight years on the farm at Little Plain, and through Steve’s 15 years refining his farming methods. “It all locks together in one model,” Alison said.
The new Farm Hub Cafe sits within that model, providing a space for value adding, storage, baking and functions.
“It’s where we value add the produce. It’s where we store it – we’ve got the big cool room and the big freezer.
“We have a wood fired bakery there as well for organic sourdough bread,” Alison said.
The new hub is open Wednesday to Sunday and for functions. It is also intended to become a training space.
“We’re hoping now to move that into training as well. You know, how to grow vegetables, how to value add, how to bake bread, all those sorts of nice things that people need to relearn or celebrate.”
The cafe and hub reflect Evergrow Productions’ broader philosophy of reconnecting people with food production. Alison said the design is intended to make the space open and comfortable for families and community members.
“It’s about being able to see things being produced and cooked like you would if you went to your family farm,” she said.
Alongside the cafe and food production, the business continues to develop new farming inventions, including a reusable organic certified mulch system fixed to mesh, designed to reduce labour and soil disturbance. “You just pick that up and you put that on a rack like a surfboard holder,” Alison said.
Evergrow Productions has plans to eventually commercialise its goat dairy and expand value added processing. Alison said they are working to get the food processing area in the hub accredited so they can produce items at scale when seasonal gluts occur. Their long term aim is to make natural farming both accessible and profitable, with the demonstration farm acting as a prototype for a model they hope others can adopt.
“We want farming to be accessible, but also profitable. The other part of our farming model is community, a place to meet and talk and share,” Alison said.
When it comes to starting a new business, Alison is frank about what it takes.
“You’ve got to have inner mongrel. You’ve got to have some sort of stubbornness… okay, you know it’s going to be hard,” she said.
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