HELP us bring Ian Hemphill from Herbies Spices to MALENY IGA

Herbies Spices is running an Australia-wide competition on Facebook. The winning grocery store enjoys a tasty and educational visit by Ian & Liz. We want to bring them to MALENY IGA and need your help. Please Like our photo on Herbies Facebook page. We need a LOT of help to beat the southern states so please spread the word and ask your friends to LIKE this image. Ian Hemphill has been in the herb and spice industry for 50 years. He sources their high quality ingredients from all over the world, travelling to Turkey, Egypt, South East Asia and the America’s, to source the best spices available for his blends. Ian and his wife, Liz even take groups on ‘spice tours’, as pictured in Jaipur, India.

Their spices are all natural, with no artificial free flow agents or padding, which is why they taste so good. Because they are a small artisan company they do short production runs all by hand; blending, packing, and sending the spices out all in the one day, so they are as fresh as can be.

Maleny IGA has the full range of Herbies Spices available over in their Gifts and Gourmet Shop, 15 Maple St. From individual packets to gourmet gift boxes and spice collections you can be sure to find the perfect spice in the Herbies Spice Range. When the Maleny IGA renovation is complete the Herbies Range will move over to Maleny IGA main store.

Gourmet Maleny Montville Food Tours

In 2013 Lisa Blainey-Lewin created & tested six different local food bus routes for us visiting our fabulous local food providers all over the Sunshine Coast. One of those routes, the Maleny, Montville tour was so popular during 2014 with Lisa at the helm we partnered with Lynn from Mystic Mountain Tours, Karen & Richard from Montville Coffee, Sara & Markus of Maleny Cheese Factory, Chris & Jodi from Pomodoras on Obi, Pete & Belinda of Wild Rocket at Misty’s, Matilda from Gourmet Afrika, Ross Hopper of Maleny Dairies and the volunteers from Maleny Visitor Information Centre to bring you the same tour each month.

This ran until October 2014 when we ceased our subsidy of the tours and Lisa began running them and new food tours under a new business Food Tale Tours.

In April 2015 Lisa sold the tours to Lynn from Mystic Mountain Tours who continues to run them today both as scheduled tours and smaller private tours.

We are very proud to have played a part in establishing local food tours on the Sunshine Coast.

Maleny IGA Foodie Nights

In April we introduced “Foodie Nights” over in our Gifts and Gourmet store. Held on a Wednesday night, featuring a cooking demonstration and a taste-testing and has no entry fee. The photo above is from our second Foodie night featuring Matilda from Gourmet Afrika and Beigli Cake. Our first foodie night Todd from Fine Life Food Company showed us how to cook with Truffle Oil and answered questions on why Italian Olive oil and pasta tastes different to Australian varieties. Todd is coming back on 30th July so if you missed him last time you can catch him this time around.

On our first foodie night we also sampled the delicious Suncoast Limes cordials and gourmet Lime Salt. Two brands will be featured at each foodie night; one local and one international or two local.

We decided to hold Foodie nights so you have the opportunity to mingle and meet local food producers and taste international gourmet food.

FOODIE NIGHTS FOR 2014 Wednesday nights 6pm to 8pm on the 28 May, 18 June, 30 July, 20 August, 10 September, 1 & 29 October, 12 & 19 November, 3 & 10 December. Note: These dates may vary dependant on supplier availability.

Matilda from Gourmet Afrika

Matilda Scarfe local producer of Gourmet Afrika range of products recently took a group over to South Africa on a ‘Gourmet Safari’, to meet the locals, taste some of the dishes and see the animals.She says the diversity of culture in the country has introduced new South African versions of mainly European dishes into homes and restaurants in South Africa. This ‘blending of flavours’ is an emerging trend in South Africa and has developed as a result of the merging of local flavours with migrant’s favourite traditional meals. One of these is the Bobotie Lasagne which takes a traditional South African meat dish (Bobotie) and blends it with the Greek lasagne, creating a spicy union of the two traditional meals.

Did you know that Matilda Scarfe’s kitchen is a regular stop on the Maleny, Montville Local Food Bus Tour? Matilda recently gave a cooking demonstration and taste test including the newly released and very popular Gourmet Afrika Dukka at the Maleny IGA Gifts & Gourmet store “Foodie Night.”

What a great opportunity it was to try some of the diverse flavours of South Africa – the ‘rainbow nation’. The name refers to the country being a melting pot of cultures from across the globe, with Malaysian, Afrikaans, English, French and German people just some of the different nationalities living in the country Matilda cooked her Special Malay Curry for us, and said she wants people to know that unlike in India, South African curries are rarely hot. They are however, very flavoursome, due to the combination of the many different herbs and spices in the recipe.

Maleny Coffee

A new Has Garanti 15kg Coffee Roaster was installed in Maleny last year as we in Maleny and the Hinterland continue our love affair with coffee. Maleny has long been renowned for our high-quality coffee cafe scene with many tourists and locals choosing to visit and relocate based on the location, congenial atmosphere of a small country town with a love for coffee and community. The smell of coffee roasting now drifts over our green hills thanks to Steve & Adrian from Maleny Coffee. Steve and Adrian have been regular visitors to Maleny during their 17 year partnership. They love the diversity of Maleny with its robust conversations, great foodie locations and the ethos of developing a new product for Maleny. In 2012 Adrian and Steve chose to relocate to Maleny from the inner city Brisbane suburb of Windsor to pursue their dreams of creating an artisan roasted, signature blend.

It has taken Steve and Adrian a year to perfect the blend they call 1891. Why 1891? Well it’s the year Maleny was proclaimed a town. The world demand for quality coffee continues to grow with 1.4 billion cups of coffee drunk every day worldwide but Steve and Adrian have no plans for world coffee domination. They want their business to be successful but not to the point where it devours the laid-back lifestyle of an artisan coffee manufacturer.

Creating relationships and being strategic by choosing to stay small and boutique but high quality is part of their business plan. Lifestyle needs to come first, with Maleny Coffee sustaining their new lifestyle and contributing to the draw and ‘branding’ of Maleny.

Packaging and branding Maleny Coffee was a big consideration. Maleny Coffee’s main logo is a tree, symbolic of Maleny and our deep appreciation for trees and nature. Steve and Adrian’s  graphic artist created ‘seasonal’ versions of the tree. The version shown on the packaging is the ‘summer’ tree and on their business cards is the ‘autumn’ tree, very appropriate as Maleny Coffee makes it’s debut now in Autumn 2014.

You can now find Maleny Coffee for sale at both Maleny IGA and across the road in our Gifts & Gourmet store. Available in 250g, 500g and 1kg packs. Perfect to brew a great coffee at home and they also look great in a gift hamper! Remember our Maleny IGA Deli staff are always happy to grind your coffee, purchased through us for free. Let us know what grind you would like and we can easily do this for you.

Come along to our next Foodie night at Gifts & Gourmet on Wednesday 28th May 6pm to meet Steve and Adrian and sample their delicious coffee. Steve and Adrian cup each roast of coffee they create. This is a quality control method ensuring each bag you buy of Maleny Coffee is high quality and the flavour, aroma etc you expect. The way you prepare your coffee makes all the difference. During the Foodie Night you’ll learn all there is to know about the different methods coffee can be prepared for drinking.

From percolating to brewing to espresso and everything in between including what sort of grind you want from your beans to make the perfect coffee.Come along and join us for this free Food Night. Bookings preferred. Please book your spot at Gifts & Gourmet.

Salads @ Palmwoods

Blake Nicolle has been farming his whole life. He and his family moved to Laidley from Zimbabwe in 2008, and opened a hydro farm growing Asian greens, and fresh herbs in 2011. They moved to Palmwoods in 2012, taking over the ‘Salad Bros’ lettuce farm and renaming it ‘Salads @ Palmwoods’, and adding his Asian greens and herbs. Blake is passionate about the importance of buying local, to ensure that farmers get paid adequately for their produce, and believes that cutting out the ‘middle man’ is imperative to keeping smaller farmers in business.

Thankfully the Maleny IGA is focussed on buying fresh, local produce such as Blake’s tasty lettuces; straight from farmers. Look for ‘Salads @ Palmwoods’ Watercress, Salad Mix, English Spinach, Baby Cos Leaves and Roquette in the Maleny IGA Fresh Produce Section.

Maleny & Montville Gourmet Local Food Tours in 2014

A great day out! NEW for 2014 are monthly Maleny IGA Maleny & Montville Local Food Bus Tours. Leaving at 8.45am for a jam packed foodie day, visiting 6 local producers, enjoying a gourmet lunch and all in the scenic Sunshine Coast Hinterland. Tickets are $59. NOTE: this is a heavily subsided and discounted ticket price designed to kick start local food tours in our region. Dates for 2014:

• April 2014
• May 2014
• June 2014
• July 2014
• August 2014
• September 2014
• October 2014

You can buy your ticket from Maleny Visitor Info Centre or via our Maleny IGA Eventbrite Booking Page.