Buy it Fresh, Buy it Local

European cities are often built around a town square, where local farmers and fishermen come to sell their wares. Unfortunately, Australian cities are not built this way, so it is up to organisations such as the Commercial Fishermen’s Co-Operative (the Fish Co-op) and the Newcastle and Glendale Farmer’s Markets to provide the places where the makers and providores meet the local community to enable the purchase of fresh produce. Buying local reduces the carbon footprint of the purchase, is fresher, healthier, and critical to our own food security. And did we mention it tastes better too?

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The Fish Co-op has over 130 fisher members and has outlets in Swansea, Wickham and Tacoma. Unless you catch your fish yourself, there is no other way to find fresher fish in our region.

“We sell over 192 different species throughout the year, and 98% of it is Australian,” said CEO of the Fish Co-op, Robert Gauta.

“We only import things that we can’t get here, such as Alaskan Crab.

“At the moment, we’ve got mullet and king prawns running locally. The mullet is beautiful done simply on the BBQ with olive oil, salt and pepper and parsley. And did you know that Newcastle is one of the few places where you can purchase fresh king prawns that haven’t been frozen at sea? This is quite unique and special. We do freeze some of the catch so that we can sell outside the season, but even then, we don’t use preservatives like some other operators do.”

To get your own taste of the freshest seafood in town, don’t miss the Taste of Seafood Festival on 13 May from 10am to 3pm at the Newcastle Fishermen’s Co-op, where there will be seafood, market stalls, cooking demonstrations and live music, ideal for all the family.

Operating weekly, the Newcastle Farmer’s Market (Sunday, 7am to 1pm) and the Glendale Farmer’s Market (Saturday, 7am to 1.30pm) are the ideal places to purchase fresh produce direct from the farmers and providores in our region. Being available weekly means there are no more excuses to continue shopping from the big supermarkets. And with Glendale now undercover, the weather is irrelevant.

“The Newcastle market has been operating for 19 years now, so it’s well established,” said Kevin Eade, Director of NSW Farmers Market. “We operated at Speers Point Park with the Lake Macquarie markets, but we couldn’t get an agreement to operate weekly. So when Stocklands offered to build a purpose-built cover, we made the move.

“The number of stall holders is growing every week. We’ve got a new Wollombi beef supplier who’ll be adding chicken and ducks, Stanview Beef from Gloucester, Twenty-4 Cheesecakes, Vadyr Beef Jerky from Cameron Park (who can’t keep up with demand!), Tilse’s Apples and Apple Truck Cider from Scone (the last of the Hunter apple growers) and Peterson’s Wines have also joined us at Gateshead.”

Kevin recommends buying in season and batch cooking at home, freezing for convenience. In season now are pumpkins, cauliflower, bananas from Woolgoolga or give the Russian garlic a try from Kempsey. Coming up for Mother’s Day, the Salvation Army will be onsite wrapping gifts; there’ll be card crafts for the kids and delectables to buy for Mum.