In light of the school holidays, I will be planning just one Food Club this month, around Lowerland's delivery.
- The site is now open, and will close on Thursday this week by 4pm! We need to get our orders into Lowerland and Langbaken with enough time, so please make sure to place your orders in time. Just a short window now.
- Market Day 18th June - collect from 14 Ludlow Road in Vredehoek. Time slots preference request will be sent out once orders have closed.
- July will return to the normal dates - mini club mid month and full month end club.
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The mighty Lowerland are supply us next week! For those who are new, Lowerland are truly regenerative farmers in Prieska who are are keeping a living root in their soil all year around, building carbon in the soil and using animals to fertilise their beautiful maize and flour crops as well as their pecan orchards. This is the kind of farming we want to see all over the world because of it's positive impact on climate change and the health of our bodies. They were part of my move from vegetarianism 4 years ago - I feel good sticking to meat like this.
They will be selling their regeneratively farmed flours, pecans as well as their beautifully portioned meat boxes and cuts. If you are unsure if a box is for you, check out these videos above to show you what you can expect from inside the Beefy Box and the Weekender Box. Their pork is particularly important part of their ecosystem. They graze the cover crop pastures, clean the pumpkin fields, vineyards and pecan orchards after harvest and break the pest cycles. They also close the loop by feeding on the organic wheat brain and maize chaff from our flour mills. Pigs are monogastric animals and their role in a farming system is massive as they can turn almost any feed and waste into protein and turn leave manure as nutrients for our next cash crop. What makes our pork special is that they are always outside and 95% of their feed comes from Lowerland, 100% is GMO free and now the pigs are also certified organic. Check out their Porker box.
With these boxes Bertie aims to solve the challenge of using a whole animal, nose to tail, while still keeping it interesting and practical for you and your freezer.
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Thanks to Richard from Trump & Timbal, many of you were able to sample two of his delicious coffees last month. As a reminder:
- The Rwanda Inzovu Peaberry - a fruity more intricate medium roast (more akin to Truth Coffee) was a favourite among members last Market Day.
- His more robust coffee, the Colombia, was also considered the perfect way to kick start these dark early mornings. More akin to Deluxe/Woollies.
Nowhere in Cape Town offers a more intricately thought through range and conscious coffee roaster: he will only source from ethical farmers, and he roasts coffee to all corners of the pallet. He has light roast Ethiopian coffees, juicy fruity coffees and he has robust solid coffees. He has a decaf that is C02 extracted (no chemicals involved). He will also grind for the actual appliance you use, or give you beans to make fresh yourselves each morning. Let me know if you have a certain coffee brand you like and I can ask him which would be most similar.
Richard also makes sprouted flours and hummus and has a range of Honeys from specific areas in Cape Town and beyond under his brand Urban Delicious.
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Supplier spotlight
VEGGIE SUPPLIERS
Get your last of the season aubergines and orange flesh sweet potatoes! We also have some grapefruit, goat's milk and goat's feta sourced by Eikelaan.
BUTTER
Mooi Vallei have found it increasingly hard to supply us for two reasons: Milk is actually seasonal - so in winter, most supermarket butter is made from subsidised milk imported from Europe where they overproduce in order to have a consistent supply all year. Secondly, Mooi Vallei have been busy building corporate relationships - which is why you now see them in Spars around town. They are no longer able to confirm a protocol on milk sourcing, meaning that while although I enjoy the taste of their butter, we can do better from an ethical point of view.
We have 2 butter options. Camphill is grass fed and currently comes in glass jars but should soon be wrapped. Their cows are grass fed and their dairy supports the Camphill Community - a truly special organisation that transforms the lives of many intellectually challenged adults.
I am also adding this month A2 Dairy Company. They source milk from a farm in Swellendam whose herd is 100% grass fed. I haven’t had my responses back yet on their farming methodology - I will let you know when I know. I haven’t tried their range but they offer raw milk, fresh cheeses, butter and yoghurts. 
Locally sourced, dry roasted, high-oleic peanut butter. This means it's highter in monounsaturated fats, sweeter and of course, more addictive!
- No added sugar, salt or stabilisers
- 30% more monounsaturated fats than regular peanuts
- Northern cape hi-Oleic peanuts
- 100% recyclable glass jar and lid.
DAD'S MAYO
Prior to meeting Dad’s Mayo, the idea of eating a spoonful of mayo actually really grossed me out. Now I get it! Made with regenerative local fresh mayo and impossibly good. Only problem I had was ordering the 250ml jar which was demolished in 2 days.
MEAT THE BUTCHER
COCOAFAIR
CocoaFair has now offered us cocoa drops as well as the existing slabs, which are a more convenient and enjoyable way to ingest your kilo of delicious ethically sourced chocolate :-)
SUGO FOODS
Amy from Sugo has offered has some new items for your winter holidays :-)
LAMB MOUSSAKA
layers of slow cooked free range lamb mince ragu, roasted aubergine slices all topped with a feta bechamel. Bake until golden & bubbling hot & serve with pita breads & a Greek style salad
BUTTERNUT & CHICKPEA TAGINE, vegan friendly
Roasted Butternut & Peppers are turned into an incredible, tomato based stew rich with spices and given the magic finishing touch with dates & olives. Serve with couscous and extra chopped fresh coriander.
CHICKEN PARMIGIANA
Panko Crumbed Free Range Chicken Breasts are topped with our house made Sugo (italian tomato sauce) Parmesan & Mozzarella cheese. Bake until hot throughout and cheese all melted. Serve with a crisp side salad or platter of sauté greens.
CARAMELIZED ONION QUICHE
Real Butter & Wholewheat crust + Free range eggs with caramelized leeks & colby cheddar. Warm up for a perfect lunch or tea time snack.
OUMA'S APPLE CRUMBLE
A family recipe for a perfect warm dessert. Bake until deep golden and serve with custard or cream.
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Climate Corner
Focussing on a more decentralised, Regenerative future
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In 2020 Ecdysis concluded their research on regenerative almond farming in California's Central Valley. The Central Valley has more than 3.5 million hectares of irrigated fields and is where 90% of the world’s almonds are grown along with many other products. In pre-colonial times it was an area of amazing natural beauty and abundance with grass parries, and forests and wetlands dotting the landscape. Today it is largely a manmade desert full of trees grown on bare ground and being kept alive by irrigation and synthetic chemicals.
Ecdysis set about searching for some regenerative almond producers and in the northern reaches they managed to find a few. The image below is not photoshopped it is the ‘fence line’ between to farms, one regenerative, one conventional. The management practices are on these two farms were vastly different and the results of the research are astounding.
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Typical Regenerative Management
- No pesticides
- Living ground cover all year round
- Compost and Compost teas for fertility and re-mineralization
- Pastured chickens being moved through the orchard
Typical Conventional Management
- 5 annual pesticide applications
- Bare soil
- Weedicides
- Synthetic fertiliser
Results
The looming train wreck of the Central Valley is water, they are going to run out of it. So let's start with the water. The regenerative orchards’ infiltration rate was 6 times that of the conventional. The regenerative orchards had 30% more soil organic matter, 4% as opposed to 3%. That 1% means that the soil could hold more than an additional 150 000 litres of water per hectare than the conventional orchards. Together these differences make your rainfall and irrigation effective, they increase your transpiration rate to evaporation rate ratio and they significantly increase your resilience.
The second major difference between the farms was pest management. The regenerative orchards relied on soil health, plant health and a healthy population of predatory invertebrates to keep their pest in check. The conventional orchards relied on chemicals, spraying the orchards 5 time a year. This management difference made a big difference and indeed there were 6 times as many invertebrates on the regenerative farm. But when it came down to counting the pest species among those invertebrates the farms had roughly the same number of pests.
And finally to the money. The yields of the different farms were roughly the same so largely due to the significantly lower input costs the regenerative orchards averaged double the profit per acre.
Ecdysis Foundation - https://www.ecdysis.bio/
Research Paper - https://f1000research.com/articles/10-115/v1?
RegenAg SA Blog
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