Newsletter February 2026

Hi 👋 and welcome to 2026!

As we begin 2026, our theme for the year is resilience. Sovereign Foods was created to give Australian farmers a reliable outlet in a market often dominated by cheaper imports, and the past season has been a clear reminder of why a resilient food system matters.

We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the recent bushfires in Victoria. Some of the farming communities we work with have been directly affected, and our thoughts are with the growers, their families, and regional towns dealing with loss and disruption. In practical terms, this means we have had some supply delays due to not only logistical issues but also smoky conditions which are not conducive to being outside. We are hoping things have started to settle and our growers can resume regular operations in the next week or so. Thank you for your patience as we continue supporting the people who grow our food.

The fires in Victoria follow several very dry seasons. One grower described 2025 as among the driest their family has experienced in over a century on the same country. Dry conditions that affected parts of Victoria and South Australia are now extending north, with some NSW growers seeing little meaningful rain since mid-2025. As a result, certain crops will be scarce this year. Below we have included a harvest report from Tania at Burrum Biodynamics in Western Victoria to give some on-farm perspective.

In better news...

We are excited to announce our first delivery of chemical-free emmer grain from Geoff and Julie Brown at Bio-Oz. Emmer fills earlier in the season and generally copes better with dry conditions than later-filling grains such as spelt. To celebrate our first delivery of emmer, we wrote an article to give some perspective as to why this grain is so important. Spelt will be hard to come by this year. We asked Geoff and Julie to help us out there as well. After having a chat to Geoff yesterday, he thinks he will be able to supply us with Spelt grain in few weeks.

With resilience in mind, we are also working with a certified organic grain grower near Emerald in Central Queensland. Our aim is to spread climatic risk rather than rely heavily on southern regions. This grower is working with some of our other growers to help source the necessary equipment to process on farm. We are hoping we will be able to source from this farm by the end of the year and can have access their 2026 crops.

Regular wheat users may notice Correll is currently unavailable. The grower has made the switch to calibre this season, which is another hard white wheat that performs very similarly in baking. Growers often rotate wheat varieties to reduce disease pressure and protect future harvests. So the main modern wheat going forward will be Calibre unless we need to source another hard modern wheat for bread making.

Further below you will find a few harvest notes and seasonal updates we think many of you will find interesting.

Thank you for your continued support of Australian farmers and sustainable agriculture, and welcome to 2026.

Warmest regards,

Thor Svensen
Founder/Director
Sovereign Foods

Harvest Updates

2. The lentil crop yielded better than expected due to a cool finish. The cool finish in 'farmer terms' means lower then average temperatures for October/November. (FYI: A heatwave can wipe out a lentil harvest in the October flowering phase if there is not enough moisture in the soil.) Lentil yields at the North end of the paddock planted were above average - compared to the South End which were below average.

3. We have harvested enough oats to do a Provenance Rolled Oat Run (this means Sovereign Foods will have at least some Burrum Oats this year).

Unfortunately there will be limited Scout Wheat available due to weed competition and its location on black self-mulching soil which cracks and under-performs in dry conditions.

Peanuts

We are still waiting to hear the final numbers on the 2025 peanut harvest. Even and Lois contacted us this week to discuss our needs, and we provided them with an estimate of how much we require. Hopefully, we will receive close to that amount so we don't run out of our raw peanuts before the next harvest is processed.

Future harvests for 2026

Crop	Region	Time
Dried Fruit	Victoria	February
Figs	NSW	March
Almonds	SA	March
Pecans	QLD	April
GF Grains	Southern QLD	April/May
Macadamias	Burnett Region QLD	May/June
Rice	Northern NSW	June/July
Grains	Central QLD	October
Grains	NSW	Early November
Peanuts	Kingaroy QLD	November/December
Grains	Victoria	Late November/December