Amy Slocombe sells her popular ferments in cafes and other stockists throughout the Snowy region. Photos: Supplied.
When Jindabyne’s Amy Slocombe started fermenting foods, her concoctions were so popular that she had to scramble to find a way to get her products into the hands of hungry Snowy Mountains residents.
This led to clandestine carpark rendezvous where envelopes of money were exchanged for jars of kimchi, and strange and colourful containers were left in Amy’s mailbox to be swapped for cash or other produce.
As demand grew, Amy scaled up her production and locked down more legitimate channels of distribution. Her lines are now stocked in Jindabyne cafes and other eateries throughout the region, including The Bredbo Pie Shop and the Berridale Cafe.
Now operating at maximum capacity for the mother-of-three who also has a job outside food production, Amy looks back on how she got here with appreciation for a bunch of happy accidents that were the catalyst for building her popular food business.
“I’m a veggie garden kind of girl, and fermenting is just a great way to preserve the produce,” Amy tells Region.
“It became a part of my routine to have a batch bubbling away on my bench. I also made fermented drinks, such as water kefir, milk kefir, and kombucha. I’d ferment cream into butter, and I’d also use it to stop food waste in my kitchen.”
Amy loves to experiment when it comes to fermenting.
One of Amy’s early influences in the world of fermentation was the work of Jo Whitton from Quirky Cooking. Amy says Jo is a strong believer in food being medicine, a philosophy that resonates with her, having raised her kids on fermented foods.
Amy laughs as she shares that a phrase commonly shouted across her house is: “Mum, where’s the sauerkraut?”
It was a friend-of-a-friend connection that spurred Amy to start commercially producing her ferments when one of the local cafes in Jindabyne won a catering job for a group of wellness doctors visiting the town for a three-day conference.
Being in the wellness space, the doctors specified that fermented foods accompany every meal – breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The cafe turned to its local microgreens supplier for help, and they in turn recommended Amy as a talented ferment enthusiast. Amy worked with the cafe to create a ferment-heavy menu for the conference.
It was those doctors’ feedback that gave Amy the confidence in her craft to pursue it on a more commercial scale.
“I knew my stuff was good, but to have the endorsement of these doctors, I thought, ‘I’m onto something!’”
The next push came when Jindabyne established its first produce-focused market, providing Amy with an opportunity to sell directly to the public, and Snowy Mountains Fermenting Co was born.
“I made three types of sauerkraut, kimchi and a fermented chilli relish,” Amy explains.
“I had a camping gazebo and the kids’ lunchbox for my cash and a trestle table. I had no signage, tablecloth, or labels. I had nothing, but I sold out of everything.”
Amy juggles kids, work and her popular fermenting business.
If you catch Amy at the markets or see her products on the shelves in cafes, you’ll notice that while she has the classic fermented products like kimchi and sauerkraut, what she’s really making her name on is her daring approach to fermenting anything.
A popular product in her summer range is fermented basil pesto, something only made possible through another local connection at a garden named The Conscious Crop, which allows Amy to pick basil to her heart’s content in exchange for jars of kimchi.
It was this connection with The Conscious Crop owner, Rod, that prompted her to create a fermented version of the popular chilli sauce Sriracha. Fermenting it meant that Amy could make it without what she calls ”the nasties”, referring to the preservatives and added sugar in the commercially available products.
Jindabyne cafe Rockstock Deli (formerly The Market) was so inspired by Amy’s fermented goods that it launched an entire toasted sandwich range incorporating her ferments, using three to four kilos of her products every week.
“They do a smoked-trout toastie with my lemon and dill sauerkraut, and they have the kim-cheesy that has my kimchi paired with cheese.”
Amy is well aware that through all this organic growth, she has maxed herself out, a situation that makes her ponder the future of the company and whether she will invest in machinery to continue growing or keep it all handmade and local.
She says handmade well and truly suits her for now, and fans of her products certainly love the hands-on approach Amy takes with her ferments.
Want to know more? Follow the Snowy Mountains Fermenting Co on Facebook.
