Feedback Organic switches business model to keep growing

Greener pastures: David Sivyer has changed his Feedback Organic Recovery model in response to the coronavirus. Picture: Brydie Piaf

DAVID Sivyer understands well the devastation coronavirus has unleashed on the Hunter hospitality industry.

Since 2013, he and his small team at Feedback Organic Recovery has collected food waste from restaurants, cafes and hotels in Lake Macquarie and across the Hunter and manually converted it into compost at their urban farm in Cardiff Heights.

As restaurants pivot to takeaway service in a bid to survive, Sivyer's company has also adapted to launch Feedbox. It harvests its seasonal, organic and sustainably grown vegetables on a Saturday morning and delivers it to customers the same afternoon.

"We go to farmers market most Saturdays but now that has changed, so this is our solution and it mitigates the risk for us," he says, adding that the Feedbox can also include Just Been Laid eggs from his sister's Hunter farm.

Having worked in hospitality and the corporate world prior to launching Feedback Organic Recovery, he is philosophical about the financial and broader effects of the coronavirus.

"It is teaching people to be resourceful, although we are isolated it is bringing family time into focus, the important things," he says.

"On the food element, I think it's about making use of what we have got and realising that on a largely global scale, you can see how easily things are affected.

"The positive is about supporting local and it's a nice outcome though it will be hard in the meantime."

Feedback Organic makes an effort to put local into every aspect of business with its "inclusive community stakeholder approach".

From the One Hour Farmer project allowing residents to participate in its farm for free then leave with produce; to the Food Cycle program that encourages students to "host" a compost bin, participate in sustainable growing and composting.

"Australia exports so much, it grows so much and we are known as agricultural society, but is that sustainable - we need to think what we can do locally," he said.

"Feedbox and programs like it are about resilience, because nothing is getting in the way of operations."