'Paddock to plate': Nadia Lim outside her and husband Carlos Bagrie's new Arrowtown food store. Photo / Mountain Scene
Celebrity chef Nadia Lim and her husband who farm on the Crown Terrace have opened a farm gate store in nearby Arrowtown to spread their message about growing food sustainably.
MasterChef New Zealand 2011 winner Nadia Lim and Carlos Bagrie this week opened their Royalburn Farm Shop on the corner of Bedford and Merioneth Streets.
The 70sq m premises were latterly a sleepout and, before that, local jeweller David 'Digs' Hargreaves' workshop.
Most of the store's items — including organic greens, honey, eggs, some fruit and grains, garlic, lamb products, wool blankets, coldpressed sunflower oil, and, in season, sunflowers — come off the couple's farm, Royalburn Station, which includes a market garden.
"We've always wanted to be able to provide our food and our produce direct from the farm directly to eaters," Lim said.
"We're so passionate about finding the best way to grow and raise food in the most sustainable, ethical way, that's really good quality as well, and so we thought a little farm shop would be a good face of the farm.
"And for the stuff we can't produce, then we go to other local suppliers."
To staff the shop, the couple — co-founders of the successful My Food Bag business — utilise their farmworkers and managers.
"They're going to come down and do some hours in the shop so they can actually talk to our customers, Lim said. "Our customers can ask them any questions they like about how the food is grown and raised."
They've also put farm relics, some dating back to the 1800s, in front of the store, "to bring back a bit of that pioneering heritage and rural heritage to Arrowtown".
"We love giving old things a new lease of life ... we think they're such treasures."
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