Our Mission
Here at Gordon FarmGate, we are all about our community.
Our mission is to create a resilient, local food economy, that unites local producers with loyal customers, right here in Gordon. Our not for profit, registered incorporated association aims to establish a volunteer-run store to retail produce from the local area, such as meat, vegetables, fruit, preserves, nuts and eggs. We want to help farmers and producers from within a 100km radius (excluding metro Melbourne) sell their products directly to the public from a single location.
Through the help of volunteers we aim to sustain a stronger, healthier and inclusive local community, by supporting producers in regional, Western Victoria.
Our Values
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Community
We are active community members who want to engage others in the local area.
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Sustainability
We want to reduce our carbon footprints, grow our social inclusiveness, and support economic stability in small regional towns like ours.
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Optimism
We think it’s important to be open-minded and view challenges with positivity. We believe each of us has the power to create change in our community, no matter how big or small our contribution.
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Good health
We pursue healthy, active lifestyles through good quality food and the promotion of local community initiatives.
Why is local food important?
Less stress on the environment
Buying local means your food hasn’t travelled thousands of miles and used all that carbon to get to your plate. Through this reduction, your food requires less packaging, less storage, less damaged and therefore less waste.
Seasonal variety
Eating locally improves the range of foods you eat throughout the year and improves the diversity of locally grown crops
It’s safer
Less exposure to contamination, and any exposure is to the bugs in your local environment. Australian producers are world-renowned for safe, disease-free, high-quality food products and because of that, our products are in part of the reason for the high quality is because the food industry is from farm to plate.
Better nutrition
Nutrients in fruits and veggies start to deplenish once they are harvested. When you buy local produce, straight from the farmer, you know your produce is fresh and at peak nutrition. It hasn’t spend hours, days or weeks travelling across countries and it hasn’t been in cold storage for months on end.
Supporting local
There are around 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, 99% of which are family-owned. Between them, they supply almost 93% of Australia’s domestic food supply and the complete food supply chain employs around 1.6 million people. It also keeps money circulating within the community. More than 50% of money spent within a community stays within the community as opposed to 15-30% when spent in non-local businesses.