No strangers to awards, the latest for Fabian Fabbro and Jodie Vickers of Woodland Valley
Farm, however, blew them away. In October they learned that they had been one of
several winners in the Sustainability category of the international Square 50 Awards. It’s the
second year this annual awards program ‘dedicated to championing businesses that are
changing the entrepreneurial game in their respective fields’ has been running, with
nominations from thousands worldwide. Nine were selected from Australia of which
Woodland Valley Farm’s Murwillumbah operation Pasta’Bah was one, then a winner. ‘We
were stoked!’ Jodie tells me. ‘We had no expectations we’d win. Us in Ferndale!’
Their farm has long used regenerative and sustainable practices such as carbon
sequestration and zero waste – all the waste from their food production going back to feed
their hens – as they work toward rebuilding the ecosystem. Pasta’Bah, their paddock-to-
plate pasta restaurant and retail outlet, was borne out of the floods when Fabian and Jodie
needed a new production facility. It now employs 14 staff and, once again, requires new
production facilities, so they will be moving into new premises in the Murwillumbah
industrial estate by the end of the year. That’s great news for the many fans of their
gorgeous pasta sauces, fresh pasta and duck egg custard, another award-winner. ‘It will
increase our production considerably’, Jodie tells me, ‘hence new product lines. We have a
funghi sauce (in the offing) but there’s no space for it at present!…There’ll be more of
everything!’
I’ve been a devoted fan of their eggs for a very long time – although I’ve yet to try their duck
eggs. Jodie tells me that they have four hundred ducks (‘they’re very easy, just hanging out
in the creek all day’: such a lovely vision!) They sell as many of the eggs as they produce.
Woodland Valley Farm is at New Brighton every Tuesday from 8 – 11am and Mullumbimby
every Friday from 7 – 11am
Victoria Cosford
