When Robert Pekin lost his family’s fourth generation farm twenty years ago, he went into exile. The grief and shame led him on a journey to explore positive ways forward for farming in Australia. That feeling triggered a passion for creating a fairer food system for all farmers and for exploring ways to help people connect to those who grew and processed their food. He believed that this disconnection and the increasing impact of climate change meant a solution was urgently needed.

Enter Food Connect, a social enterprise that Robert, with his partner Emma-Kate, a few local farmers and a small group of motivated mums kick-started in 2005, using the principles of Community Supported Agriculture.

Food Connect's vision is to create a world where everyone has access to healthy, fresh, ecologically-grown food that is fair to growers, eaters, and the planet. We want to transform the food system, and we believe the next step towards this vision is to create a working local food hub for the regional food economy, that is owned by the community.