Green Living Australia

One of the best fermented foods/craft supply sites in Australia – My partner and I are a pretty crafty, home-grown, home made everything kind of couple. My partner likes to make soap, cosmetics, and lots of other natural and home made products, while I grow a lot of food in our yard, do extensive cheese making, sausage making, as well as basic charcuterie, cured meats and smoked products. We meet somewhere in the middle on bread baking, and preserving our many and varied harvests, which involves canning, pickling, jams, making cordials, ice cream, general baking of cakes and patisserie items, etc.

With so many tasks going on we often need supplies that are typically difficult to find in your average shopping district. I'm going to focus on one supply company, Green Living Australia. Green Living Australia is the cheese ingredients/equipment supplier of choice of Valerie Pearson, author of "Home Cheese Making in Australia" who also runs her own cheese making workshops.

I have ordered supplies (usually centred around my cheese making) from Green Living Australia and found that their products are very good, offer some of the more difficult-to-find items, and offer reasonable pricing. Also, for larger orders, it's often a benefit to order enough to get over the "free shipping threshold". I've found that I get more, and actually spend less.

Contacting the company has always been met with a prompt, and helpful reply. I've even asked simple cheese making questions, and general guidance when looking for information. However, if you're just starting out on your cheese making journey, you might want to look the online cheese making courses on the little Green Workshops site, or consider doing one of Valerie's through the Green Living Australia site.

One of the things that I like most, is that when ordering cultures, (which are perishable items) late in the week, they'll contact me and ask if they can actually ship it early the following week so that the cultures are not out of refrigeration over the weekend, and arrive in the best possible condition. Of course, I do have the option to "chance it" and see if Australia Post gets its act together if rushing it is absolutely needed. It's these sorts of things that I find not only helpful, but likely to benefit my cheese making.

All in all, this company does what it says it does, and does it well. There really aren't many fermented food suppliers in Australia (ignoring home brewery shops), and I've dealt many, if not most of them. I also recommend having a look at some of Gavin's cheese making videos on YouTube, and for a laugh, check out the tasting of the "Triple Pepper Jack" cheese video. It might show you or your spice-loving friends some of the extreme varieties of cheese you CAN'T buy and inspire you to learn a new craft.

So if you make Kefir, Kombucha, bread, cheese, yoghurt, home made soap, cosmetics, and others, this is a handy site to know, and I heartily recommend you have a look.

I hope this helps you on your home-made endeavours!