A new venture is hoped to help a well-known stop on the trip to Ballarat expand its business and help more small producers.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Farmgate Shop in Elaine has opened up its first pick-your-own sunflower farm as it hoped to raise money to help fund its move and expansion.
The business is moving about 800 metres down the road to a bigger site with better car parking, but needs to pay $250,000 to construct a turning lane to help traffic flow in the area.
The Farmgate Shop has been open on the Midland Highway, just across the train lines, for six years and now stocks more than 40 local producers, along with its own lamb and eggs.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Farmgate Shop owner Mark Dunne and his family planted close to half a million sunflowers across the 27-acre paddock, some of which have started to bloom.
Mr Dunne said the idea was born out of trying to find a unique way to come up with the money.
"I suppose it's something unique. It's a bit novel. It's a good way to get people out onto our farm and experience the farm," he said.
"We want to keep the shop going so we came up with a novel idea of trying to raise some good money out of this to help fund the turning lane."
"It is a lot of money and we've put a lot of hard work in over the last six years to establish the business so we don't want to lose that and we're actually supporting a lot of other little businesses with all the products we sell now, so we thought we'd bite the bullet and keep fighting on."
The Farmgate Shop sunflower farm will be open seven days a week until the end of March.
If you are seeing this message you are a loyal digital subscriber to The Courier, as we made this story available only to subscribers. Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to continue telling Ballarat's story. We appreciate your support of journalism in our great city.
