News

Founder of Farmer Meets Foodie and AgFrontier Regional Agtech Incubator alumni, Erica Hughes has joined forces with Austral Fisheries and StartSomeGood to run a pilot project to deliver prawns and bugs from the Gulf of Carpentaria direct to homes and restaurants in Cairns.

“A lot of seafood harvested in North Queensland travels to Brisbane before coming back to North Queensland supermarkets,” said Ms Hughes.

“This project will be saving an astounding 3,362 km of food miles per box by keeping it in North Queensland, reducing the cost to the environment and fishers.”

Farmer Meets Foodie is one of two finalists from the Seafood for Good Accelerator program, run by StartSomeGood and Austral Fisheries, which will test the viability of home delivered, wild caught Far North Queensland seafood through a crowdfunding campaign starting on 1 September.

“Seafood for Good is all about closing the trawler to table gap for sustainable seafood,” said StartSomeGood Co-Founder and CEO, Tom Dawkins.

“Farmer Meets Foodie does exactly this by linking consumers to producers, while promoting transparency and sustainability.”

During September, supporters can pledge a donation in return for rewards, including home delivery of Skull Island Tiger Prawns and Bugs sourced from Karumba, a glamping and Tablelands food experience and a Boho beach picnic featuring sustainably sourced local produce.

Ms Hughes said the crowdfunding campaign will allow Farmer Meets Foodie to build new technology and roll out the delivery of products across the region, ahead of its ‘Summer of Sustainable Seafood’ launch in Cairns at the end of November 2020.

“We want to give Far Northern foodies the full story of how this seafood is harvested and delivered in season, including the minimal impact on by-catch, improved nets, turtle excluder devices and annual science surveys to monitor the status of the fishery,” she said.

To support the Farmer Meets Foodie crowdfunding campaign, visit https://www.startsomegood.com/projects/farmer-meets-foodie