Rob's shattered dream springs back into life

December 2, 2021 is a day that Rob Mather will never forget.

More than two years earlier, he had purchased Valley Fresh Farm at Huonville after spending the majority of his professional life doing desk-bound work.

The main feature of the property was the hydroponic glasshouse that had been unused for years before Mr Mather bought it.

“In the 1980s, tomatoes grew in it that were supplied to the major supermarkets,” he said.

“Then it became uneconomical because the scale of the glasshouse was not required for the supermarkets.

“But it was large-scale for the chemical-free, local restaurant market I wanted to get into – it seemed massive when I bought it.”

After extensive repairs to the 1800m² glasshouse, Mr Mather was growing a variety of vegetables including zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, baby spinach, rocket, kale, lettuce, radishes, garlic and snap peas.

But all that hard work was destroyed late on a Thursday afternoon during the second day of summer in 2021.

“It was steamy – it didn’t feel like the Huon Valley, it felt like the tropics,” Mr Mather said.

“We were harvesting garlic and we knew there was a storm coming.

“There were five of us working at the site that day and we all left around about 4pm.”

An hour later, a hailstorm swept through Huonville and caused considerable damage to the glasshouse.

“It was smashed up and there was glass everywhere,” Mr Mather said.

“We used a lot of weed matting on the ground and the glass just sliced through it like daggers sticking everywhere.

“I was in shock for about a week or two.”

Mr Mather managed to salvage some of the crops that were growing in the glasshouse, which were transported to a temporary farm at Crabtree.

“Two weeks after the hailstorm, we had excavators in to clean up the site,” he said.

“The hardest thing about it was letting go of my staff.

“I couldn’t offer continued work given the situation.”

In the aftermath, he was left with a parcel of land that was completely bare.

“The positive that came out of it was that we had a blank canvas to design a farm,” Mr Mather said.

“There aren’t many small growers growing the way we do, and it seems to work.”

Mr Mather said it had been a big learning curve in determining how to apply nutrition to the vegetables to get good growing crops.

“We designed the farm around a couple of our main customers and crop planting around their needs.

“And as we’ve grown and taken on more customers, they’ve also responded to what we grow, while still adjusting to their needs.”

Valley Fresh Farm provides vegetables to more than a dozen Hobart restaurants such as Peppina, Fico, Dier Makr, Ogee, Sonny and Sylvie.

Thomas Snowball started working with Mr Mather right before the glasshouse was destroyed and rejoined Valley Fresh Farm after it became operational again.

The former chef had worked in kitchens around Australia beforehand and said a desire to work outdoors was the reason behind the career change.

“I still love cooking and this is very much related to that,” Mr Snowball said.

“I still have that connection with all the chefs in town, talk with them and figure out what to grow.”

Valley Fresh Farm provides a list of its available produce to restaurants it supplies each week, which varies depending on demand and what vegetables are in season.

“We’ll hook more restaurants on as supply increases,” Mr Mather said.

“The most stressful part of this job is when you’ve got too many orders and not enough stock.

“We don’t want to overpromise, hence the incremental growth.

“We’re in discussions with a couple of larger restaurants now and I feel like we can do that because of the extra growing space we’re going to have this season after the construction of our new greenhouse.”

Mr Mather said he was looking at growing some new crops.

“One of the main growers of wasabi in Tasmania closed down and we were approached by Masaaki's Sushi at Geeveston asking us to grow it.

“We’ve got to put in some specific infrastructure to grow it, but it’s something we’re working on.

“We’d also like to complement the vegetables with a bit of fruit like different lemon varieties and passionfruit, because the restaurants are saying they’d really like to get some of them.”
However, Mr Mather said he was determined to ensure that any business growth was achieved in a manner that doesn’t compromise the original ethos of producing sustainable and chemical-free crops.

“It’s not a big money-making venture – it’s an industry of passion.

“The reason we’ve grown seedlings that we are selling is because I started out as a backyard grower.

“I really love the idea of encouraging people to grow plants.”