Just a few clicks from Noosa’s glorious main beach and the glamour of Hastings Street is Noosa’s industrial estate where there’s more than just workshops and warehouses.
Take Belmondo Organic Market, your one-stop shop for wellness. Think ethically sourced meats, organic fruit and vegetables and coffee that is good for the soul.
Clandestino Coffee test, roast and offer tastings of their bold brews at their Noosaville HQ. You could say their coffee has an elevating effect – hence the giant plane hanging above the café as you enter.
“Aviation runs through our DNA,” said owner and coffee connoisseur Jaxon Taylor. “The story’s based on my Dad who used to fly in Papua New Guinea transporting gold, silver, coffee and people!”
“Papua New Guinea is still today such a huge part of our business and where we source coffee from.”
“So the process begins at origin and that could be in Africa, Central America, Papua New Guinea and we go to great lengths to source ethically produced coffee so we want to make sure that the people who are growing the coffee are getting looked after.”
Samples from exotic shores make their way to Noosa – and are meticulously appraised.
“We go through the aroma, the fragrance, the taste, the after taste.”
The best of the best is selected and roasted to order. From there, the only thing left is mastering the art of a perfect pour which is where the café’s barista courses come into it.
“So you’re going to learn how to extract coffee perfectly, eliminating bitterness and sourness and getting maximum sweetness,” Jaxon said.
Coffee isn’t the only popular brew in this part of town. Just down the road you’ll discover some of the coast’s best craft beer, courtesy of Heads of Noosa.
Lance Masterton is the owner and head brewer. He’s got his work cut out for him.
“With the brewhouse, we push out 5000 litres each brew,” he said. “That’s about a thousand cartons per day.”
Heads of Noosa specialise in lagers, but don’t let that fool you into thinking all their brews are similar.
“Throughout the different brews we’ve got, we use a lot of different malts which give you the different colours
throughout the beers and the different flavours that you’ll taste.” Lance explained. “The most popular one we have is a Japanese – very crisp body from the rice that we use in the gristmill.”
If you’re the designated driver, don’t worry they’ve got you covered too with a hop flavoured sparkling water – the only one of its kind in Australia!
Got one more for you. Something a little bit different. Our H2O. It’s a hop flavoured sparkling water.
Amid Noosa’s factories and warehouses is a business that’s blazing a trail in sustainability.
Clare Botfield and Renton Bisopric make Pottery for the Planet.
“I was a barista and I was just watching those people come in day after day and every day I was giving them another cup and another cup to throw away in the bin so that’s when I said to Renton, we need to do something about it!” said Clare. “You can’t force people to do something, you’ve got to work on changing the culture so we tried to create a really beautiful thing that people would just be naturally drawn to using.”
Their footprint (or should I say lack of) goes beyond reducing waste. Pottery for the Planet is revolutionizing the art of making ceramics.
“We want to become leaders in environmental and sustainable business so the biggest thing we’ve done recently is installed loads of solar panels onto the roof and so we’ve got this big electric kiln,” Clare explained. “So it chews power and if we can fire that during the day it’s a grid feed set up and we can look at the app on our phone and it just shows us that usage is staying neutral.”
“Then when we’re not firing we’re actually generating power and putting it back into the grid as well.”
As you can see, industrial Noosa is brimming with the unexpected. Check it out for yourself next time you’re in the neighbourhood!
