Matthew Evans
Matthew Evans is a Tasmanian food writer, television broadcaster and chef who lives and works on Fat Pig Farm, a soil-to-stomach regenerative farm and restaurant. He’s been the host of six series of Gourmet Farmer and two documentaries on SBS TV. Matthew is the author of over a dozen books on food, including the On Eating Meat, and his latest cookbook, the updated and revised The Real Food Companion. His book SOIL is a hymn to the remarkable, and underappreciated bit of Earth that gifts us life.
Emily Salkeld
Baking sourdough for 16 years after working in kitchens, a cheeserie and in vineyards, involvement in the Grainz community has continued the interest in localising food production.
The deeper in a food maker goes, the more questions there are, but also the more diverse and optimistic the answers become!
Stephen Walter
Stephen started growing grain when he was 9 years old. At Burrum Biodynamics, Stephen has built up the soil microbiology using the Australian Demeter Biodynamic method - A Latrobe University study found that soil water infiltration rates at Burrum to be 7 - 14 times greater compared to its conventional neighbours.
Stephen loves baking sourdough for wife Tania and their 3 children on the 3000 acre family farm. During 2020 - 2022, Steve and Tania cleaned and bagged 317 tonnes of produce, all grown at Burrum to feed Victorian families.
Stuart Whytcross
Stuart is a registered grain grower, having managed farming practices to produce high quality cereal grains for the past 28 years on his family’s property in Barellan. As founder and director of Voyager Craft Malt, Stuart has been able to bring together his passion for Agriculture, Education and Craft Beer in a highly unique innovative business. Voyager supply single origin, artisan malts with full paddock and farmer traceability to some of the world’s best beers and spirits.
Stuart’s passion for his hometown and region is no more evident in role of Project Coordination, and founder of the Not-for-Profit Barellan Beer Project, set up to raise funds for his community and give identity to the town’s main commodity of cereal grain.
Thomas & Gabi Moritz
Thomas and Gabi operate Boonderoo Farm, an organic farm and sourdough bakery in Victoria's high country.
They specialise in sourdough and rye breads, as well as traditional European pastries such as brioche and strudel. The flour is milled on site the day before baking, and all breads and deserts are baked in a woodfire oven.
Gabi and Thomas supply to local restaurants and can be found at farmer’s markets in their region.
Ian Congdon
Ian Congdon is a farmer and flour miller based in Rutherglen, Victoria. He runs Woodstock Flour with his wife Courtney and they produce wholegrain, stoneground flour from organic grain grown by themselves and their family. Woodstock Flour supplies flour and grain to artisan bakeries and home bakers across Victoria and NSW.
Ian is passionate about the connection between agroecological farming systems, food quality and community and landscape health.
Prof Rudi Appels
Rudi Appels is an Honorary Professor at the University of Melbourne and was awarded the Farrer Medal in 2022 for his Australia-wide/global leadership in determining the structure/function details of the wheat genome. His Honorary appointment at the University of Melbourne provides for the continued commitment to working with research colleagues postdocs and graduate researchers to investigate the molecular genetic issues underpinning biochemistry in agriculture and food production.
Although Rudi’s main commitment is in defining the wheat genome, he draws inspiration from achievements and breakthroughs in other organisms from humans to microcrobes.
Dr. Miin Chan BBioMedSc MBBS
Miin is a medical doctor & nutrition researcher fascinated by the intersection of fermentation, culture and health. She founded Australia's first tibicos business, worked with sustainable food system organisations and writes about the culture of fermentation communities.
Currently, she is a PhD scholar at the University of Melbourne, focusing on the effects of fermented foods on gut health and chronic disease. @dr.chans
Monica Carvasan
Monica Cavarsan is the proud owner of the Bellarine’s local cultured butter factory, Lard Ass.
Monica is a dairy farmer’s daughter who grew up in Western Victoria surrounded by the creamy goodness of fresh milk and churned butter. Proud of her Italian heritage where food was grown and sourced locally, and growing up with her 6 brothers and sisters helping her parents manage the farm, Lard Ass grew out of a yearning for simple goodness bringing back great taste in butter.
Before Monica started her own business on the picturesque Bellarine Peninsula, she used to work as a marketing Guru in Melbourne. She is much loved by the community and is a true game changer coming to the Bellarine working her magic.
Alessandro Bartesaghi
Alessandro started his career as a pastry chef in in Monza, near Milan. He moved to Paris, where he worked at the Mori Venice Barbefore joining Benoit Castel at "La Grande Épicerie". In Melbourne since 2011 Alessandro is executive pastry chef at the Melbourne Convention Centre.
A passion and curiosity about the technical challenges of producing great pannetone took Alessandro to Europe to study with Christophe Louie.
In 2018 he won the Valrhona C3 chocolate chef competition in Hong Kong and represented Asia Pacific at the world final in Paris.
Tammi Jonas
Tammi Jonas is an agroecologist in principle and in practice, farming heritage-breed Large Black pigs, cattle, and garlic with her bricoleur husband Stuart and sharing land with the young farmers of Tumpinyeri Growers on the unceded lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung. Their joyful community is lighting a beacon for agroecology to show a frugally abundant way to a world where there is radical sufficiency for all. Tammi is president of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), co-editor and co-author of Farming Democracy: Radically transforming the food system from the ground up (2019), and undertaking a PhD at the University of Western Australia on the biodiverse and decolonial practices and politics of small-scale farmers, and the impacts of the state on their efforts towards an agroecological transition in Australia.
Jade Miles
With the bush in her bones and business in her head, Jade Miles is a poly-jobist right down to her toes (which are probably barefoot and muddy). In 2020 she launched her podcast Futuresteading and has also released a book with the same name.
Together with her family, Jade runs Black Barn Farm, a biodiverse orchard, nursery and workshop space in Northeast Victoria. She hosts school programs, permaculture and homesteading workshops while sitting on multiple boards – all in the name of reconnecting people to nature, food and a simpler existence.
Jade is is currently CEO of Sustainable Table. Grounded in care for people and planet, her team facilitates connection, collaboration, funding and learning to catalyse change across Australia.
Jo Barrett
Jo Barrett finds it difficult to talk about herself. However, there’s a string of others who’ll wax lyrical about her philosophy, passion, and long list of achievements in the hospitality industry. The ‘game changing’ chef and ‘culinary superstar’ not only has the skills and experience to credit this reputation but also recognition as a World’s 50 Next Pioneer. Look for her in the award-winning documentary featuring Joost Bakker’s FutureFoodSystem. The film chronicles a year of living and working in a tiny urban, zero-waste farm situated smack bang in Melbourne’s Federation Square. Perhaps you were lucky enough to dine at the hatted Oakridge Winery restaurant where Jo wore multiple hats as Co-Executive Chef - pâtissier, charcutier, cheese-maker, grower, etc. When she’s not harvesting and creating fabulous dishes, she’s sharing her know-how in a Have a Go series or representing Australia at the World Championship of Pastry. Later this year, expect her book, Sustain to hit the bookstore shelves. Her finest endeavours are now best enjoyed at Little Picket, a humble Lorne Bowls Club restaurant on the Great Ocean Road. Locals and visitors couldn’t be happier.
So, if you ask what drives this overachiever, she laughs and modestly replies, ‘I just love gardening and hanging out with local producers.’
Daiela Maiorano
A fierce fourth-generation chef from Abruzzo, Italy, Daniela was born into the kitchen. Daniela grew up helping her grandmother roll gnocchi and shape sourdough for daily service in the restaurant, together with the “commarucce” - the legendary and riotous women who made up (and still make up!) the kitchen team.
Whether she's making ravioli the way her father taught her or drawing on her life experience to create new dishes, Daniela's cooking is all about bringing people together. Her love language is food and she's on a mission to share that love with everyone she meets.
Her energy, passion and creativity are sure to leave you inspired and hungry for more.
James Fisher
Rock Paper Flour
Dani Valent
Dani Valent is one of Australia’s most respected food communicators. She is a longtime freelance journalist and restaurant critic, award-winning cookbook author and host of the Dirty Linen food podcast.
Dani is a frequent media commentator on hospitality issues and a leading industry advocate. She was named a Legend by the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival in 2022 and was honoured for her Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality in the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards 2023.
Cristal Peck
Cristal studied Biomedical Science in Australia, before transitioning into the brewing industry where she worked in Berlin, Germany for several years before relocating to Antwerp, Belgium. Here she combined her background in brewing and biological research into a role targeted towards innovation at the malting company, Boortmalt.
In her capacity as Product Innovation Manager, Cristal and her team work towards enhancing product and process innovation-targeted developments in the malting industry.
Ian Lowe
Ian Lowe was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1978, and raised in Houston, Texas. He previously owned and operated Apiece, a bakery in Launceston, Tasmania, for a decade. He and his wife, Pip, are working on their next project, Pane Piano. Along with Michael James, Lowe co-founded and named grAiNZ.
By combining his passion for simple, local foods; traditional methods of preparation; deep curiosity for scientific fundamentals; and, above all else, freely sharing his knowledge, techniques, and recipes, Lowe has quietly influenced bakers globally. He is always thinking about bread.
Franco Villalva
Franco Villalva the Head Baker and co-owner of To Be Frank Bakery, in Collingwood, Victoria, which specializes in the Respectus Panis technique. With over 16 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Franco began his career as a pastry chef before transitioning into baking.
His passion for bread was ignited when he discovered the respectus panis technique, a method that emphasizes the importance of natural fermentation and the use of high-quality, locally sourced ingredients. This technique quickly became his specialty, and he has since honed his skills to make his bakery one of the best Respectus Panis bakeries in the business.
Franco's ultimate goal is to create a space where aspiring bakers can learn about bread making and be exposed to a variety of working positions. From patisserie to panettone, sourdough, yeasted breads, and low inoculation breads, Franco is committed to sharing his knowledge and expertise with others.
Topher Boehm
Topher is an obsessive learner and inquirer who sees intrinsic value in every aspect of culture. He is also ardent about sensory experiences, always seeking out new tastes and cuisines to challenge and develop his palate.
After spending 4 years as a professional brewer in Sydney, Topher travelled extensively to Europe and his native Texas learning old-world techniques necessary to make wild, mixed fermentation beers. Wildflower was created in 2016 brewing barrel aged ales wholly fermented by a diversity of yeasts and bacteria collected from flowers native to NSW.
He hopes that Wildflower will inspire makers of all kinds to draw on what's around them to craft beautiful things that bring joy.
Matt Preston
Matt Preston is an award-winning food journalist, best-selling cookbook author, and radio and TV presenter. He hosts Saturday Mornings on ABC Radio. He writes for delicious magazine, Stellar magazine and develops recipes and videos for Australia's biggest recipe website, Taste.com.au. For ten years he has been helping charity Second Bite fight waste and fight hunger.
Holly Davis
Holly is an inspiring wholefood chef and educator. In her current business Food By Holly Davis she aims to seduce people to better ways of thinking about, sourcing, preparing, and eating balanced wholefood meals that happen to be good for them.
She has been intentionally fermenting food and drinks to deliciousness for over four decades. Holly’s vision ‘to feed people love’ is expressed in her inspiring and informative face to face and online cookery classes, her talks, through her articles and when she is catering or food coaching for private or commercial clients.
Chris Morrissy
Chris Morrissy works as head baker at Ket Baker, having been around bakeries since he was a child. His grandparents owned a bakery and so baking is his second nature. Chris is a big foodie and is passionate about home grown, home cooked food.
Chris has a broad knowledge of the industry, having worked in a wide range of hospitality businesses worldwide. He has worked in one of the best restaurants in Australia (Vue De Monde) over 3 years and some top restaurants in London, which made him super charged with skills. His standards are high and his work ethic is fabulous.
Chris bakes from the heart, is a true rock and he is very passionate about the importance of the liveability for the people in the hospitality industry.
Gabriel Gate
Gabriel Gaté trained with some of the best French chefs of his generation in several of the top restaurants in France and England. He arrived in Australia in 1977 with his Australian wife, Angie. Soon after, Gabriel began to free-lance as a chef consultant, cooking demonstrator, teacher, writer and broadcaster.
He is one of Australia’s best-selling cookery authors, his 24 cookbooks having sold well over one million copies. Several generations of chefs and home cooks have been inspired by Gabriel’s cooking and food philosophy and he is often referred to as the original TV Master Chef in Australia.
Dr Kate Howell
Kate is an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. She leads a laboratory of postdocs and graduate researchers to investigate questions of microbial ecology and chemistry in agriculture and food production.
Kate has particular expertise in yeast biology and genetics with applications to food and beverage production. Kate works collaboratively with researchers within Australia and around the world, and is passionate about understanding the fundamental roles microbes play in the production of safe, healthy and flavoursome foods.
Maaryasha Werdiger
If bread is about nourishing community, Maaryasha Werdiger is all about bread. Her kosher microbakery first drew the Orthodox Jewish community of Melbourne's south-east to her flour-dusted garage, then from 2021 to Zelda, her two-day-a-week shopfront in Ripponlea.
A physiotherapist by training, the world of sourdough lured Maaryasha for its endless puzzles and opportunities for connection: not just with local Jews, but also with baker-mentors such as Michael James, local growers like Jason Cotter from Tuerong Farm, and neighbourhood food identities including Ben Shewry and Dani Valent, who have collaborated with her on delicious flavoured knishes.
Lana Purcell
Lana is a passionate food waste warrior and has built an organisation and community that believe in the potential of food waste to feed thousands. Founded in 2019 based off the food waste of her own hospitality business, Feed Me has grown into one of the largest food rescue and relief charities in Victoria. This has been proven by rescuing tonnes of food a week and then in turn delivering it to thousands of families across the Bellarine.
The co-founder and CEO of Feed Me, Lana supports volunteers, manages Feed Me and works alongside stakeholders to provide those in a vulnerable period in their lives with food parcels and meals. Lana promotes the basic human right of food security, enabling people in need to access to healthy food with dignity and respect. Lana also acts as a mentor and role model to the volunteers of Feed Me Bellarine, Surf Coast and Geelong. She has done this by revealing pathways for people to utilise their existing skills in logistics, marketing, food preparation/hospitality, empathy, and small business start-up skills.
Lana and her team offer food support without judgement, often catering for those families and children fleeing family violence circumstances. Feed Me can support these families for a limited period with food parcels and meals, which ensures already-tight finances can go towards securing other priorities during this difficult time.
She is a positive, hardworking person who has made a great deal of difference to the perception of food rescue and food insecurity in the region.
Cesare Salemi
Let’s be real - modern bread is broken. Third generation master baker and global bakery consultant Cesare Salemi has made it his mission to fix it.
Born and bred a baker, for the last 27 years Cesare has inspired and equipped professional artisan bakers to rebuild the local grain farming economy using holistic and sustainable tools and techniques that nurture heritage grains.
“Bread sits at the heart of our tables, meals, families and lives and when it is created with love from the earth to the table it brings life.”
That’s why Cesare, along with the support of the world's best artisan bakers, has launched The Micro Bakers Collective. A collective of knowledge and help for the beginning bakers. They want the thousands of at home bakers who have returned to the tradition of artisan bread making, to join the revolution to create with love and fix bread.
Robert Pekin
Robert has been an organic dairy farmer, market gardener and is an innovator for the regional food economy in Australia. He founded Food Connect Brisbane, a multi-farmer food distribution enterprise with an community-based distribution system.
During Covid Robert commissioned the Woodstock Flour team to build a mill on which he mills flour from all sorts of grains.
Robert recently joined the Advisory Board of the Sustainable Table Fund. He co-founded the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance and was a founding director of the international software organisation the Open Food Network. He’s a contributing author to Fair Food, published by University of Queensland Press.
Jason Cotter
Jason Cotter is a farmer, miller and seed collector. His family operate Tuerong Farm, a small wheat farm, mill and bakery on the Mornington Peninsula. He works with a diversity of genetics from across the history of wheat.
Jason is a recent recipient of a Nuffield farming scholarship, investigating the restoration of flavour, nutrition and resilience in grain systems.
Courtney Young
Courtney Young is a farmer and artist based in Rutherglen, Victoria. She runs Woodstock Flour with her husband Ian and they produce wholegrain, stoneground flour from organic grain grown by themselves and their family.
Woodstock Flour distributes to artisan bakeries and home bakers across Victoria and NSW. Courtney sees farming as the most effective way to create landscape change through the building of soil, biodiversity and community.
Courtney is passionate about fostering a local grain economy where grain is appreciated and valued for its diversity and regionality.
Ken Hercott
Ken grew up on an organic wheat farm in the Mallee and became interested in baking at an early age. The Hercott family established the first on farm flour mill in Victoria in 1988, allowing Ken to experiment with fresh milled wholemeal and naturally leavened bread. An informal apprenticeship under master baker, Richard Bourdon of Berkshire Mountain Bakery, raised his baking skills to a professional level and continued his commitment to producing a quality product that is the mainstay of a western diet. Meeting Alan Scott expanded his baking repertoire, particularly in using wood-fired ovens.
Ken returned to Australia to bake with pioneer sourdough baker and bread author, John Downes at Newrybar and then on to Natural Tucker Bakery in Carlton North to begin his Melbourne journey. Ken is a stalwart of CERES, helping to build the Alan Scott oven, baking and selling bread at the Saturday market and still holding regular bread classes. He currently works with Paul Demchy at Sprout Bakery in Castlemaine and operates Bread Builders, offering a monthly bake for the Maldon Market.
Adam Rivett
Adam Rivett is one half of the partnership with wife Florence at Milawa Bread. Adam, a chef and a winemaker, travelled to France under a Queen's trust grant in 1998. Working with artisans around the country, he immersed himself in bread and French culture.
Milawa Bread started as a micro bakery making a few loaves of bread in a small oven in the back kitchen at the Milawa Cheese Company over 20 years ago. A growing interest with a benchtop mill in 2016 has turned into the bakery milling 2 to 3 ton of a diverse mix of grains each week in house. 2016 also saw the development of the inhouse workshop that has seen Adam move into his weekly role of milling and maintenance.
Anna Wittwer
Anna Wittwer is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne in Kate's lab. Through her PhD project, she is studying the properties of lesser-known yeast species derived from sourdoughs and attempting to use them to alter the nutritional profile of bread.
Anna works with sourdough-derived yeasts that come from all over Melbourne and Victoria, and has a particular interest in the unusual and non-conventional microbes found in fermented foods.
Chris & Gab Moore
Chris & Gab of Sailors Grave Brewing make beers that are unique, sometimes challenging but always with nuance & subtle layers of complexity. They make hand crafted, artisanal beers that explore an ever-changing selection of styles with a diverse array of farmed and foraged ingredients that showcase the “terroir” of place and are an expression of our areas agricultural & maritime history and the pristine wilderness they call home.
Collaboration is at the heart of everything they do and draw inspiration from the farmers, growers, makers, doers, thinkers they share time with.
Christ Stafferton
When medical conditions forced Chris and his youngest daughter into gluten free diets in 2006, he was appalled with the bread substitutes that were available. Never one to shrink from a challenge, Chris began to develop bread without gluten that is good to eat, satisfying and nutritious. As a pioneer in the field of sourdough bread prepared with gluten free ingredients Chris published ‘Promise & Fulfillment: formulas for real bread without gluten’ in 2019. Chris’s new book ‘Breadarchitect’s pocket companion: essentials for baking good bread without gluten’ will be released in 2023.
Gregorio Montalban Sanchez
Grego is a Spanish chef who retrained as a baker during a one-year sabbatical with his family in southern Sweden in 2019. There, he learnt the art of sourdough baking and the delicate skills involved in baking traditional Swedish buns. The Invy Baker, a microbakery in the heart of Inverloch, was the result.
Grego now bakes a range of sourdough, pastries and Swedish buns in his homebased bakery with his products sold in local cafes and restaurants throughout Bass Coast and South Gippsland. He is often spotted around town on his electric cargo bike too, delivering to the homes of his loyal local customers as well as at the local farmer’s market.
Sharon Flynn
Sharon Flynn is one of Australia’s foremost natural fermentation authorities. Born from a lifelong curiosity of fermented food, she founded The Fermentary more than a decade ago, creating a range of wild fermented food and drinks.
After online demand for her products increased, she established a unique space in Fitzroy North, home to curated, small batch ferments and host to workshops featuring local and international experts. Bestselling author of “Ferment for Good” (2017), her newest book “Wild Drinks” (2022) continues to inspire and engage others with a compelling enthusiasm for fermentation and food sovereignty.
Sharon has received many awards including Delicious Magazine “Outstanding Artisan” (2016) and legend status in 2021 by the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for food advocacy and production.