Our homegrown produce is an important part of your experience at Gaia Retreat. Whether you’re joining our organic gardening team’s Forage and Graze tour, participating in a cooking class, or enjoying delicious plates from your restaurant table – you’ve enjoyed a taste of our gardens.
And with that, we are dependent on the seasons, and often support local suppliers to keep our kitchen abundant. Join us as we hear from food and beverage suppliers we’re passionate partners with, like Oliver’s Hens.
What had started as a school project when Oliver Bora was 17 years old has quickly flourished into a very real business with a mission to provide fresh, local, organic, and truly free-range eggs to the local community. Oliver started his business at Byron Bay food hub, The Farm, in 2021 with a flock of 1,500 hens and hasn’t looked back.
His are very special hens that gift us very special eggs. Oliver’s hens are given at least 4 square meters of fresh pasture to roam and enjoy, fresh local organic grain from Casino to enjoy, and rotate to new pastures every 2 weeks (for happy birds and healthy soil practices). In contrast, conventional “free-range” systems hens are only required to have 1 square meter to move, and there is no requirement for them to have access to the outdoors, many live their whole life in a shed.
And the difference is clear in the kitchen, these eggs have double the Omega 3 than standard cage eggs, making them a lot tastier, nutritious and filling for you. We enjoy serving these poached for breakfast, hard boiled on summer salads, or turned into fresh mayonnaise…the opportunities are endless!
You can follow Oliver’s journey via @olivershens, or say hello at the weekly Byron Bay & Mullumbimby Farmers Markets.