BRIGHT Food Co-Op has had a stellar 12 months, doubling its revenue from the previous financial year, expanding membership and welcoming new producers on board.

The co-op held its annual general meeting this month which treasurer Gil Paulsen said saw two new committee members and Julie Savage elected as chairperson.

“It’s been a big year, we started in our location at Dumu Cafe before it closed and we moved to the Bright P-12 campus,” she said.

“It’s quite different and we weren’t sure how it was going to go without the same street presence, but it's going really well.

“We had access to new network of potential customers and certainly some new families have joined the co-op since that move.

“We started to grow our range of fresh producers with multiple new producers on board in the last 12 months.

“We’ve now got quite a long list of local suppliers, and an exciting addition is How Now Dairy; an ethical organic dairy farm in Katamatite, supplying us with fresh milk on tap.

“The tap will be installed this week and then customers can bring their bottles to be refilled, which will make a huge contribution to reducing the number of plastic milk bottles going into recycling.

“We’ve also got a goat cheese supplier and new olive oil supplier now and we’ve doubled our revenue in sales in that 12 month period to June 30 from the previous year, which is a really good thing.”

Over the summer months in early 2024, Dumu held a number of community dinners with local vegetable suppliers donating unused produce for plant-based meals.

“It was really successful, most were sold out events,” Ms Paulsen said.

“The aim was to promote local producers and show people what you can do with fresh produce for a small amount of money.

“Some other big achievements were our online shop grew with those new producers and we’ve set up a relationship with Stony Creek fish farm, who have solved our logistics issues.

“One of our biggest challenges and costs was to get produce from our growers into the shop; it’s a big issue for lots of local businesses with freight and logistics being challenging and expensive in regional areas.

“Stony Creek use a refrigerated van to drop off their produce every Thursday and they donate the use of that van to pick up from our producers which is incredibly generous.

“We get produce from Beechworth, Mount Beauty, Markwood and more so it’s hugely helpful.

“Their support helps to reduce food miles and carbon emissions.

“We’ve built up our volunteer base, who mostly label and pack our click and collect orders.

“We have around 16 volunteers but are always looking for more as our membership numbers have gone from 60 to 83.”

Looking to the year ahead, the Bright Food Co-Op has some big plans.

“In the coming year we’re starting a conversation with Myrtleford Neighbourhood House to look at ideas for setting up satellite food hubs for the Alpine Valleys, Myrtleford and potentially Harrietville,” Ms Paulsen said.

“We do have big dreams for the long-term, we’d like to think we could develop a local food system that’s really sustainable and resilient where people could do most of their shopping, which would mean expanding our range as well.

“The satellite hubs outside of Bright for members who live in Eurobin, Smoko, Freeburgh, Harrietville, Porepunkah; it would be great to have something like this in those communities.

“The other arm of what we do is educational workshops around growing your own food, planting, grafting, growing vegetables, pruning and more.

“Through COVID we saw how challenging it was to experience interruptions to the food supply, so building a strong little food system within the Alpine Valley would be so important.”

The shop is open for online orders, order between 12pm Friday and 12pm Tuesday for collection the following Thursday between 5pm - 6pm and collect from 27 Deacon Ave, Bright (Bright Stadium/Bright P12 College).

For more information go to https://openfoodnetwork.org.au/bright-food-coop.