Seven Years of Hazelnut Farming
Seven years is a big deal in hazelnut farming...
We can't really believe it ourselves, but this year marks over 7 years since we embarked on our hazelnut farming journey. For those who doesn't know, Messina owns and operates two farms in Country Victoria. We have our dairy farm in Numurkah, which produces beautifully creamy jersey milk which we use in all our gelato production and our hazelnut farm in Seymour which grows hazelnuts for any of our hazelnut flavours, pastes and additions.
So why is 7 years such a big deal? Well... seedlings can often take 7 years before they produce a full crop, so the trees we planted when we first took over the farm are finally coming to fruition and giving us a full crop. Once harvested the hazelnuts are cleaned, sized and sent up to Sydney to be roasted and turned into a hazelnut paste. So this year, we're celebrating with a special hazelnut product and flavours in stores.
Here's where you can eat our hazelnuts:
Bake at Home Hazelnut Sticky Snail - going on sale Thursday 15th August (hint hint weekend before Father's Day, so get one in your freezer ready for the big day) is our Bake at Home Sticky Snail filled with choc chips and vanilla custard, topped with hazelnut caramel, roasted hazelnuts and dark chocolate. It comes with a slap up 1L tub full of vanilla custard gelato, hazelnut fudge and hazelnut praline mousse, topped with a Messina dark chocolate and hazelnut crack. Go get one from Thursday here.
Messina Hazelnut Praline Special - Fior di latte gelato with hazelnut fudge and hazelnut praline will go into all stores on Saturday 24 August, as a hazelnut riff on our best selling flavour - Pistachio Praline. Head into any Messina store to try it until stocks last.
Our Hazelnut Classic Flavour - available all year in all stores is classic Hazelnut Gelato. We make our own paste for this by roasting and blitzing up the hazelnuts from the farm and churning it into our gelato in-stores.
Other farm news - veggies for the staff!
Since taking over the farm, we have also done a lot of work on the permaculture of the soil, to transform it from dry arid land into beautiful regenerated soil. Both of our farms use the no-till regeneration method, which has proven to be a great success and meant we can eliminate all pesticides, chemical fertilisers, as well as preventing natural erosion in the soil.
On the hazelnut farm, we've dug out 'inlets' or big holes to retain the rainwater which runs off the road. In doing so we can maintain the moisture in the soil, making it a more fertile environment for our trees, whilst catching a natural resource that would have gone to waste.
This beautiful soil is now home to multiple veggie patches on the farms which grow all manor of things we use for our gelato (like all the mint for our mint gelato). Every week the farm sends up a weekly crop for Messina Staff to take home in veggie boxes (lucky us!). Plus there's honey from our bees and eggs from our chickens too. Hands up if you want to go on a trip to the Messina Farm...pats with the farm cat included.
