Award-winning Gourmet Australian macadamia producer, Brookfarm celebrates its 15TH Birthday.

This November marks a major milestone for Australian macadamia producer, Brookfarm.

Starting from very humble beginnings, the multi-award winning company is now celebrating its 15th year of business.

Pursuing a dream of being based in the New South Wales’  Northern Rivers, co-founders Pam and Martin Brook purchased 40ha of land in 1988 and planted 4,200 macadamia trees. With the trees taking 10 years to establish, in 1999 they harvested their first crop.

After recognizing a gap in the market for value-added products for macadamias, they experimented with several macadamia-based concepts. Their goal was to create healthy, great tasting food products that people could enjoy as part of their everyday diets. This was when the idea for their muesli was born.

Pam and Martin remember the feeling of excitement as they loaded the ute with the muesli ingredients and took them to the farm bakehouse to start production. The Brooks created their first muesli batch and released it at the local Bangalow markets in November 2000.

From here, business boomed. They attribute part of their growth to the support of these local establishments and have never wavered on the fact that they won’t supply to either of the large supermarket chains.

As Brookfarm thrived, their own farm could not keep up the required supply of nuts and they needed to purchase from other local farms.

Another area of growth for Brookfarm can be attributed to the beauty of the Northern Rivers that attracts tourists and encourages visitors to relocate to the area.

Visitors would come to the local markets and purchase their muesli and then later, as the muesli was distributed into Sydney and Brisbane, there was already brand recognition in these cities.

So, with the support of the local community and visitors helping to build their brand, Brookfarm continued to grow. Their product range now encompassed macadamia oil, trail mixes and a variety of breakfast options.

This meant that Brookfarm could also start to give back to the community and soon adopted breakfast programmes for the homeless, drug and alcohol affected people, youth and school children in need.

Formal recognition of their progress came as early as seven years later when Brookfarm became the first food manufacturing business to win the 2007 Telstra Australian Business of the Year Award.

More recently, as part of the company’s efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, the company was recognized and awarded silver status in the 2014 New South Wales Sustainability Advantage programme for the installation of 288 solar panels at their Byron Bay factory. In addition, determined to create more organic, sustainable business practices, Martin’s old-growth rainforest regeneration project on the farm has seen plantings of more than 30,000 native trees.

The co-founders of Brookfarm, Pam and Martin Brook, are exceptional people. And they’ve raised remarkable sons, Will and Eddie. They are the kind of family that others want to surround themselves with. With a calm determination they are strong business people. With a love for food and friends, they are easy to be around. And with a passion for doing something they love, they are inspirational.

Contact Brookfarm:

PO Box 18219 Glen Innes, Auckland 1743 NZ
Tel: +64 9 575 2630  Fax: +64 9 575 2631  Mob: 021 589 185
Email: navona@threefountains.co.nz   Follow us on:  Facebook  Twitter 

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