By Jessica Anstice
The inaugural Cardinia Farm and Food Festival was a bustling success, with more than 300 fresh food lovers seeing, smelling and tasting the locally grown produce at Pakenham’s Living and Learning Centre.
Friday’s event marked the first anniversary of the Cardinia Community Food Strategy, created with the direct involvement of more than 500 Cardinia residents in Kitchen Table Talks, as well as the conclusion of the very successful Pick My Project, Growing the Future: Pakenham Community School Farm.
“It was a tremendous success and a tribute to the wonderful work of the many volunteers of the Cardinia Food Movement as well as the staff of Sustain and Cardinia Shire Council,” Sustain: The Australian Food Network executive director Nick Rose said.
“The event was well supported by locals and visitors who sampled local prepared, fresh and packaged produce from 23 stalls and participated in workshops and talks on fermentation and beekeeping.
“It was an afternoon to remember – and definitely must be an annual event for Cardinia Shire from now on.”
Cardinia Shire Council mayor Jeff Springfield and Bass MP Jordan Crugnale took centre stage to commence formalities and introduce the launch of the Cardinia Food and Farm Directory – an online resource profiling 32 producers and food businesses within the Cardinia municipality.
With a jam-packed program, festival goers had the opportunity to see and hear firsthand about the community Pick My Project grant with Pakenham Secondary College from community garden volunteer Max Godber and learn about kombucha and kefir from Fermented Mumma’s Jess who also offered a sourdough starter kits and kombucha mother kits as prizes.
Kitchen Table Talk proved popular amongst the foodies with an array of interesting presentations including For the Love of Farming by Alexander Mascitti from Thriving Foods Farm.
Mr Mascitti – a second generation farmer with parents from Italy and Egypt – worked with market gardener Travis from Peace Farm, and is now working with Paul from Thriving Foods Farm. He spoke about his love for interacting with customers at markets and his interest in how permaculture can cross over with farming.
Next up at Kitchen Table Talk was Caroline Hammond from Come fly with me Beekeeping who shared her passion and knowledge of the bee world including people can help bees and the intricate details of what knowledge is necessary to become a beekeeper, as well as why it’s important to ‘bee’ aware.
Liz Tampion from EMTs Happy Food was last to the table. Ms Tampion spoke about food that is important for health and wellbeing. During her touching presentation the audience listened to Ms Tampion’s story about her diagnosis of MS.
