FermenTasmania is urging closer to its goal of establishing a research hub for fermentation in the state’s North.
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A not-for-profit company, FermenTasmania is the brainchild of Black Cow Bistro co-owner Kim Seagram and microbiologist Tom Lewis.
Born of a conversation Ms Seagram and Dr Lewis had while sitting in on an industry reference group at the Centre for Food Innovation, FermenTasmania aims to build a hub for fermentation research in Launceston.
“[It] just grew into something [where] we got industry onboard, and it gradually gained momentum,” Ms Seagram said.
“Because it’s talking about extracting more value from our primary produce before it leaves the state, which really makes sense.”
What the industry reference group determined was that rather than having one central hub for food innovation in Tasmania, a group of specialty satellite hubs should be implemented across the state.
And so FermenTasmania would be based in Launceston, because that is where a lot of work around fermentation is already being done.
Dr Lewis said Northern Tasmania was where “all the industry and energy” was.
“When you’re looking at the energy of the food industry and the opportunities for value-adding in the fermentation world, a fair bit of activity seems to be happening up North,” Dr Lewis said.
FermenTasmania’s research hub would be a “sandpit”, according to Dr Lewis.
Not only would it provide commercial-grade fermentation facilities for those who already have a foothold in the industry, but it would also offer lay people the opportunity to see the fermentation process demystified, and to try their hand at it themselves.
The centre would cater for beermakers, cider makers, winemakers, cheesemakers, breadmakers and others.
Dr Lewis said FermenTasmania was “getting to the pointy end” of cobbling together a business case for the prospective centre.
Ms Seagram, meanwhile, said she would “love to have the go-ahead” for the research hub within 12 months, because she wished to start building it by the end of 2017 at the earliest, and by the beginning of 2018 at the latest.
She highlighted the positive impacts fermented produce had on the human body.
“You’ve got all these colonies of goodies that will improve your own personal health because you’re allowing your gut to have all this beautiful flora and fauna,” she said.
“We’re actually making ourselves unhealthy by not having those bugs in us.”