Sovereign Foods Origins

This is the story of a few hardworking people, many friendships, a dog named Liana, lots of good food and a need to create something new involving communities of eaters and growers in South East Queensland and beyond.

In 2009, Thor Svensen, then an environmental science student at Griffith University, took a course in Food Politics with sociologist Dr Kristen Lyons. Through this study and his role volunteering at the university food co-op, Thor grew to understand the need for local community food systems based on transparency, sustainability and self-determination, and developed the desire to take action toward these goals in his own community.

Around this time Thor was offered a part-time gig selling potatoes at the West End Markets in Brisbane. He also took on a job making deliveries for Food Connect in Salisbury, through which he made friends who shared his desire to set up a local food co-operative. Before long they saw how challenging it was to source organically grown dry pantry goods from Australian producers. It was relatively easy to source fresh fruit and vegetables, but much of the dry staple foods available through organic wholesalers came via global supply chains, with minimal transparency. This lack of transparency meant that it was impossible to know if the farming practices were sustainable, and if the farmers were being paid fairly.

In 2012, as Thor began postgraduate studies, he met Tara Ross who shared his values and enthusiasm to create strong local food networks in Brisbane. The couple, with their friends, set up the Chewsday Food Collective under their house in Annerley. This began a period of new activity and learning, including the important discoveries that under-house storage of bags of grain through humid Brisbane summer is a recipe for weevils, that Rosnay’s beautiful dried figs should be kept well out of reach of Liana (their dog who ate a whole kilo of them!) and that there was good energy in the community for these initiatives.

With a growing network of support, including the development of co-operative ordering software Lettuceshare by Malcolm Blaney, additional co-ops and buyers groups were set up around Brisbane. While these networks developed, Thor continued to find and build relationships with a diverse range of small and medium size producers of dry pantry staples (grain, flour, pulses, legumes etc., many from family farms) around the country.

One of the family growers Thor found early on were Stephen and Tania Walter, from Burrum Biodynamics in north eastern Victoria and they were the first grain and pulse producers to supply Sovereign Foods. Thor found Burrum via Farmhouse Direct and recalls trying to get in touch with Tania on the phone and being told “I’ll call you tomorrow”. Farmhouse Direct had announced “free shipping for one day only” and the local post office was promptly delivered 200kg of lentils to send to Queensland! Eventually Tania and Thor had to work out another arrangement (Sovereign Foods now receives tonnes of produce from Burrum farm every month), but this was the first time they had accessed organic and biodynamically grown lentils from an Australian farm.

Other important, early relationships were formed around this time with Felix from Kin Kin Naturals on the Sunshine Coast, Julie and Geoff Brown from Bio-Oz in Parkes, Slater Farms in northern New South Wales and Sam from Rosnay Organic in Canowindra, among others.

In 2014 Thor reconnected with a mate, Nick Hansen (now Sovereign Foods Warehouse Manager), who he originally met at the Griffith Uni food co-op, and Nick joined the team. By this stage Thor had given up his PhD because, as he says, “this was far more interesting”. They rented a fridge for perishables and a cold room for grain, and in 2015 the spud stall at Davies Park Markets expanded to start selling dry goods.

A bit further along in 2015 Stephen York joined the team. Steve was the Market Coordinator at Northey Street Organic Market when he reconnected with Thor at a public talk on food security (Thor was the speaker) and aside from attending the same primary school, they had much to talk about regarding market stalls.

Later in 2015 Sovereign Foods held its first stall at the Northey Street Organic Market, selling grain, nuts, and other household pantry items. By the end of the year they considered pulling out due to low sales, but decided to hold off until the new year, and thanks to some very loyal returning customers things started to take off! Thor and Steve continue to run the Sovereign Foods stall at Northey Street each week.

After more chats with friends and customers and through a series of small short to medium term loans, Thor, Tara and the team created a social lending network which raised $150k through the year of 2016 and Sovereign Foods moved from ‘under the house’ to its current warehouse location in Lucy Street, Moorooka.

While the funds raised were a big help, they were only a fraction of what was needed. Fortunately friends and customers were willing to donate their skills and time to help customise the facility by building a new cold room, food grade packing room and mezzanine storage area. They also gathered enough funds to buy a forklift and the first pallet loads of stock from growers.

Sovereign Foods was (as Thor puts it) “bootstrapped” from the start, but it was important to operate with integrity within a developing system based on genuine relationships of trust. It was essential to earn the trust of growers, many of whom are small family farms who take risks every year to bring their crops to market.

Since the early days, Sovereign Foods has developed into a social enterprise business selling exclusively Australian grown pantry produce locally and nationally via the online store. Sovereign Foods maintains its own local food co-op (the Moorooka Midweek Member’s Market) and continues to supply dry pantry goods to other Australian co-ops and wholesale customers like professional food makers and stores. It also continues to prioritise the needs and ongoing viability of smaller, sustainability-focused growers who exist despite our import heavy food system, increasing future security for both growers and eaters in Australia.

Over the last few years Sovereign Foods has continued to develop and is quickly outgrowing the current cold room and packing space. The team will need to look for a second or a larger warehouse in the immediate future, and will also look for investment towards the long term goals of:

• Building a processing facility that growers can use with fair terms (to remove the risk of small farms having to rely on third party processors).

• Finding and supplying produce from more growers.

• Contracting (prepaying) growers to remove their risk in trialling new crops.

• Expanding the Sovereign Foods packing facility to use machinery, reducing manual handling and giving staff opportunities to do more interesting things at work.

• Buying a printer to print directly onto compostable bag packaging, reducing the need for non-compostable labels.

Thor, Tara and the Sovereign Foods team are looking to the future. They want to continue connecting growers to eaters, making sure that nourishing, sustainably grown food is available for Australians into the future. They want to see the business grow large enough to ensure that smaller Australian producers can access a viable place to sell their food without having to self-market or work off-farm to subsidise their income. They want farmers to keep on farming and ensure that essential food growing skills are recognised, supported and maintained into the future.

Thanks for your time, we appreciate your interest.

Find out more about the producers we work with here.

For further enquiries, contact us here or visit our online shop to see what we're selling currently.

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