Natoora

Order Your Natoora x Hagen's Peak Season Box HERE 

Farmers: Various

Location: Collingwood, Victoria

Produce: Everyday Fruit & Veg Box, Seasonal Peak Box

Principles:Flavour-First Agriculture, Seasonal, Soil Health

Website: https://natoora.com/en-AU/

Natoora was founded by Franco Fubini in 2004 in a bid to restore flavour, transparency and seasonality to a broken food system. In  2022, Franco and Kim Driver joined forces to bring Natoora to Melbourne, connecting restaurants and home chefs with Australia’s most flavour-led growers.

Featured Peak Box Grower -Five Tales Farm - Piedmont, VIC

 

Mikey and Kez of Five Tales Farm, have worked around the world gaining experience, growing and cultivating in microclimates around Australia, the United States and Europe before settling into the 15 acres in Gippsland’s Baw Baw Valley that they farm and call home. The natural beauty of this site drew them in but they stayed for the region’s volcanic soil and mild climate. 

 

Mikey and Kez have always wowed us with their varietal selection, growing crops that we don’t often see or if we do, at next level quality and flavour. Their commitment to a healthy and biodiverse farm, where the soil eats first and last, is easily seen by the vibrancy of their fields and tasted through the produce they grow. Bunching and bouquet flowers are as important here as vegetable crops, they diversify the farm’s offering however also attract beneficial insects and pollinators to keep their heirloom vegetable varieties thriving. 

 

January’s Peak Season Box is stacked with produce from Mikey & Kez, we have included two striped zucchini varieties from Five Tales Farm - romanesco costata and cocozelle. Both are purposely picked small and young, for fresh flavours, a crunchy texture and limited moisture levels, making them perfect for grilling. We also have the first few weeks of their frying pepper mix. This is a mix of shishito, fushimi, cubanelle and sandia de hatch peppers, which are great blistered or grilled, then best eaten with a dash of good vinegar and flaky sea salt. Last, green kohlrabi and pink hearted baby cos are the perfect combination to make an easy and delicious salad to level up any summer barbecue feast.