A few days later, the first COVID-19 lockdown hit.
“There was a time not long after we opened and COVID had hit the same week where I just went, ‘what the hell have we done?’,” Lauren Mathers said.
Mrs Mathers runs the Little Pork Deli in Barham, which spent most of 2020 cut off from half of her potential customers by police teams and car-sized concrete blocks.
“It was frightening — the amount of money we’d outlaid, the plans — we just had to be happy we weren’t travelling to farmers’ markets anymore,” she said.
“We had a local outlet, which was what we always wanted, and now we could concentrate on online sales which were skyrocketing over COVID.”
Online sales became the game plan, but it was local sales which really surprised Mrs Mathers and her husband Lachlan Mathers.
“Because we stayed open over COVID the local support from our community was crucial,” she said.
“I wouldn’t have been able to stay there without everyone coming in and buying.
“We had people driving over from neighbouring rural towns because they couldn’t get into Victoria.”
Ever since, Mrs Mathers has maintained a 25 per cent discount on fresh pork for local customers.
Locals turning up and supporting the store not only kept the business upright, but also supported the new staff members Mrs Mathers had brought onto the payroll.
In addition to her long-time butcher Gary, a backpacker named Amy was hired to run the front-of-house and a butcher’s apprentice and all-round helper was later included.
“Amy is a backpacker that stayed around, which is awesome,” Mrs Mathers said.
“She’s got a local fella so she’s very settled into the local community. She’s actually with my cousin who’s an electrician.”
The meat in store comes from the Mathers’ own farm, Bundarra Berkshires, 9 km away, where they raise free-range heritage breed pigs.
“What we produce is really good meat. It is super tender, juicy, has an amazing flavour and crackle,” Mrs Mathers said
“We win awards every year with it, which proves we must be on to a good thing and the environment does affect the taste.”
Mrs Mathers said the shift from farm gate sales to the in-town deli was a big change and had created a lot of brand awareness.
“Some people didn’t even know we had pigs, they didn’t know what we were doing out there.
“People do live in their own little bubbles so the store has been good for people being able to access our pork ... and that was always our goal, to supply the town with locally grown pork.”
The pig herd on the farm has increased to 80 as the Mathers work to keep up with sales.
The next big upgrade will be finding more land so they can expand their dryland farm without sacrificing quality.
Mrs Mathers said their most popular products were fresh pork — which was always "really popular" — bacon and French ham.
“French ham is an air-dried meat, people are taking to it,” she said.
“Our most profitable products would be the rillettes or bacon, the real value-add stuff.”
The Little Pork Deli also stocks other local goods such as Meander Butter, 12 Good Eggs and Mallee Honey.
The deli can be found at 118 Punt Rd, Barham.
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