Radio Brisvaani
VICKI MULLER, 48, TOMATO PRODUCER, PEAK CROSSING
VICKI Muller’s foray into the life of a full-time tomato grower was something of a happy accident. The Ipswich medical secretary and her husband, Troy Muller, a travelling vegetable seed rep, had always wanted a bit of land of their own, so in 2003 they bought 6ha at Peak Crossing, 60km south of Ipswich. The plan was simply to get a few cows and horses and give their kids (Laura, then 6, and Angus, 3), space to run around on the weekends.
“Then one day we just decided to have a go at growing something and we did a tiny patch of little grape tomatoes,’’ Vicki, 48, recalls. “The taste was spectacular so we started taking them into the farmers markets in Brisbane (West End, then New Farm and Kelvin Grove) as a side hobby.
“They were small batches but the reaction from people was amazing. We’d have customers making special trips in each week to buy more.’’
The tomatoes boasted a juicy, lingering taste and every tomato was a different size, which the Mullers and their customers celebrated as a point of difference to what was available in the big supermarkets.
Sensing they were on to a good thing, the Mullers upsized to a 16ha property at Peak Crossing, in 2010, and this time planted a few hundred of the grape tomatoes and started experimenting with other varieties.
Whenever there were leftovers from their weekend market excursions, Troy, now 49, would offer them to a few fruit and vegetable agents he knew at The Brisbane Markets at Rocklea. Those were also snapped up, this time by Brisbane fruit shop owners, who demanded more, and the Mullers decided to get serious about their growing operation.
Tomatoes prefer an indoor life, sheltered from rain so Troy built one green house, then another, then another. It was at that point they trialled a new tomato variety: Solomerinda heirlooms, which proved to be their most popular. Production got so busy Vicki and Troy quit their day jobs.
Today they are growing 16,000 plants and dispatching up to five pallets of tomatoes a week, which are being trucked into Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
“We didn’t realise there would be such a demand for what we were growing, it all fell into our lap really,’’ Vicki says.
Their tomatoes, sold under their Peak Veggie Patch label, are only available in independent fruit and vegetable shops – and that’s just the way the Mullers like it.
“It’s a deliberate decision we’ve made because we like to give the independents a point of difference to Coles and Woolies; to give people a reason to go in to the smaller shops. We are only a small grower ourselves so we want to support the little guys.
“People want to know where their food is coming from and the story of the farmer who grew it, and because our fruit shop owners know us, they can tell the customer ‘this is Vicky and Troy’s stuff, it’s really good’. You don’t have those conversations in the big retailers.’’
Peak Veggie Patch also supply Brisbane restaurants: their produce is regularly on the menu at Wild Canary at Kenmore and Moda Restaurant at The Barracks in Petrie Terrace.
“We ring them and say ‘we’re picking today what would you like?’ and they send their order through, or if we have something new we think they might like, we’ll offer it: it’s working well to have those relationships.’’
The Mullers trial different plants and varieties every year: they are currently also producing a yellow Roma and a large cherry tomato and are about to plant some speciality capsicums. The only prerequisite for any new produce is it has to taste exquisite.
“There’s a whole generation out there who don’t know what real tomatoes taste like,’’ Vicki says. “When people taste our tomatoes they say ‘this is just like my grandad used to grow in the back yard!’, which is what we like to hear. None of the varieties we grow are the same size or shape either, but that’s a real tomato.’’
FORMER Queensland government architect Vaughn Schultz knew “barely nothing’’ about farming when he decided to move back to his family’s 162ha property on the outskirts of Toowoomba in 2006 and forge a sustainable life for his young family.
The farm at Goombungee, 40km northeast of Toowoomba, had been in the Schultz family since 1894 and Vaughn was keen to tap into his ageing father’s knowledge.
“I was working as an architect in Toowoomba and the rest of the time I was working as an apprentice farmer with Dad, understanding animal husbandry and how all the farm machinery worked,’’ he says.
Fast forward 13 years and that farm – used by previous generations for pig farming, dairying and grain farming – is now the site of a thriving venture into presentation-quality suckling pigs and large charcuterie pigs.
It’s a new direction that Vaughn and his wife Jade, 34, with the support of father Geoff, 70, and the extended family, have forged after discovering a gap in the commercial pig farming market.
Their pigs – along with smaller side lines of Black Angus beef, garnish flowers, forage greens and heirloom vegetables – are in demand from chefs at some of Brisbane’s best known restaurants, including Gerard’s Bistro, Blackbird and the Spicers Retreats chain.
Vaughn credits their success with their commitment to ethical farming practices, which he says resonates with chefs and consumers.
“Our plan in going back to the family farm was simply to feed ourselves and our children (Xavier, now 10 and Ava, 6), have control over our food, and establish a permaculture lifestyle,’’ he says. “Then one day in Brisbane I happened to meet a chef (Ben Williamson, then at Gerard’s Bistro) who was trying to source a local producer of ethical suckling pigs. I said: well I’m a pig farmer, I think I can help you. He came out and had a look at what we did and from there we expanded to meet his demand.
“Word-of-mouth took hold and the next chef gave us a call and we grew again to meet their market. We’ve expanded exponentially over the past five years.’’
Their suckling pigs are also garnering national attention after picking up a gold in last year’s delicious. magazine Produce Awards, following three state gold medals in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Vaughn says their pigs taste so good because they live so well. “We are a complete outdoor operation for starters, so the pigs can dig and make wallows and see the sun and all those beautiful things you’d want for an animal. I also personally take my own animals to the abattoir so I have complete control over their care and attention right through to processing.’’ They also operate a closed loop system: growing their own grain, which they feed to the pigs and cows.
Vaughn left his full-time government job seven years ago but still supplements his farming income with freelance architecture projects.
“We are very grateful and lucky to live the life we do,’’ he says.
“The beauty of our family farm is it has supported many families over the years, going back to the Great Depression, by allowing them to grow their own food. It’s a good feeling to be continuing that tradition.’’
Sustainable growth has been another key to success, he says.
“Dad has always instilled in me to start slow and meet your market before you look at increasing production and that’s what we’ve done.’’
TREVOR SMITH, 37,
CHOCOLATIER, TOOWOOMBA
TUCKED away in a small industrial precinct in suburban Toowoomba, Trevor Smith is slowly rebuilding his award-winning craft chocolate business that had its origins in his former home of Falun in Sweden.
Thirteen months after resuming production of Metiisto Artisan Chocolate after a two-year hiatus, he’s buoyed by the favourable reaction from Australian retailers and his former European distributors.
He’s also busy: single-handedly producing and dispatching 100kg of chocolate bars a week to customers across Australia, the United States, France, England and New Zealand.
“Some people might think we are an overnight success but they don’t see all the years of hard work that have gone into the business to get us to this point,’’ Trevor says. “Making craft chocolate has been an obsession of mine for a long time.’’
Metiisto started in 2012 in the basement of the home Trevor and his wife – Swedish dentist Magdalena, 39 – shared in Falun, 200km northwest of Stockholm.
South Australian born Trevor called Sweden home for 13 years, after visiting with a friend on a holiday in his early 20s, then meeting and marrying Magda there and having two children, Stevie, now 10 and Jamie, 2.
He was a panel beater in Australia but took a left turn in Sweden and opened a cafe. He then started making French pastries, which led him to discover the emerging craft chocolate scene in Europe.
Craft chocolatiers source micro lots of cocoa beans and tease out that bean’s unique flavour through a labour-intensive production process.
After four years of refining his techniques in his Falun basement, Trevor was producing 120kg of chocolate a week and won contracts to supply some of Europe’s large department stores.
When Metiisto picked up a swag of medals at international chocolate awards in 2016, investors came knocking, but at that pivotal moment in the business’s growth, Trevor and Magda called it quits on chocolate.
“We wanted to have a second child but we didn’t have any family support in Sweden and my wife was running her own (dental) practice. Ultimately we decided we couldn’t do both (have a child and a second business) so we had to make the difficult decision to close the chocolate business down.’’
They had Jamie and relocated to Australia in early 2018 to be close to Trevor’s Toowoomba-based family, but it wasn’t long before the chocolate dream reared its head again.
“It was always in the back of my mind: should we have another crack at it? Magdalena convinced me to give it another shot and do it properly this time.’’
They sourced second-hand machinery in Brisbane and leased a shed at Toowoomba’s Harristown, a short walk from their new home. Production started in May 2018, with cocoa beans sourced exclusively from the Solomon Islands. His industry peers agree Trevor is back to producing some of his best chocolate: recently awarding Metiisto a gold, silver and two bronzes at the Academy of Chocolate 2019 Awards in London.
Metiisto currently produces five chocolate bars of various cocoa intensity: three dark chocolates (85 per cent, 72 per cent, 67 per cent) and two milk chocolates (58 per cent and 55 per cent), as well as two flavoured milk chocolates: coffee, and raspberry and liquorice.
A drinking chocolate and their newer panned products: chocolate covered almonds, a peanut slab and rocky road are also proving popular. Trevor describes the process of producing his chocolate, which takes more than a month from bean to bar, as “90 per cent science and 10 per cent art’’.
“Our dark chocolates have fruity and nutty flavours (coming from the cocoa bean) and are nowhere near as bitter as people expect when they think of dark chocolate. It blows people’s minds that dark chocolate can, for example, taste like apricots.’’
“The support we get from the public and media (in Australia) is so much more than we got in Sweden. Having people say ‘we like what you are doing, keep doing it’, that encourages us to keep going.’’
