The Wimmera Grain Store

Seeds of Growth: Accelerating Regional Development and Collaboration in Wimmera

Jenny (nee Matthews) Moore founded The Wimmera Grain Store in 2011, to supply locally grown produce to the Australian domestic market. Following a strong family history within the value-added space, Jenny has grown the business and developed a range of retail-ready products made from chickpeas, lentils and faba beans available as whole grains, flours and snack foods.

Growing up in the small town of Rupanyup, three and a half hours from Melbourne, Jenny has always been passionate about contributing to regional development and has strived to put Rupanyup on the map. After The Wimmera Grain Store produced their first batch of chickpea flour, Jenny gave a sample to a close friend, from this her friend developed the Rupanyup Living Brownie. The popularity of the Rupanyup Living Brownie has resulted in people flocking to Rupanyup just to taste the delicious product.

Jenny’s passion for her family, Rupanyup and the Wimmera, has driven her to establish an artisan brand and food trail, designed to promote the town, region, art and food.

With a desire to connect with business leaders within the Wimmera to promote and further develop a food trail, Jenny discovered FIAL’s Seeds of Growth program, via the Wimmera Development Association, and thought it would be a great opportunity to network with fellow businesses and to strategise ideas together.

FIAL’s Seeds of Growth is a 12-week program run in partnership with Beanstalk Agtech. The program aims to foster collaboration in regional areas and help small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) begin their innovation journey to commercialise new and emerging revenue streams. The two most recent Seeds of Growth programs were hosted in Wimmera and Warrnambool in respective partnerships with the Wimmera Development Association and Warrnambool City Council to promote both regions as centres of excellence for food production.

Jenny explains that “value-adding is not easy, but programs like Seeds of Growth can take the pain out of the journey”.

“Five years ago, I milled my first faba bean flour and took it to a trade show in Melbourne. No one was interested, so I took it all back home and ended up feeding it to my sheep. What took me years to learn through trial and error can be condensed into months with programs like Seeds of Growth. It can save you time, money and heaps of frustration,” she said.

Through the Seeds of Growth program, Jenny was able to ‘reconnect with local foodies’. “The program supports businesses which could become part of a Wimmera food trail, something which is now gaining momentum,” she said.

Seeds of Growth covered 12 topics, from creating a new value proposition, supply chain improvements, quality control and transport logistics. These tools gave Jenny a ‘newfound confidence’, giving The Wimmera Grain Store a “more defined business structure with a new and improved e-commerce and social media strategy”. Jenny believes courses like Seeds of Growth are “vital to transition the regions from a commodity mindset into a retail- ready mindset”.

 “I would recommend Seeds of Growth program to any regional business because it can transform a concept to ideation in months. The programs’ structure allows the grower or small business to work by day and learn by night with the online tools and weekly virtual meetings to connect with others,” said Jenny.