It was the Easter long weekend when Happy was told that Flavour Collective was looking for new owners to take on the business, primarily making jams, preserves and relishes.
“It was run by a couple, Jenny and John,” he said.
“I used to buy all my relishes and jams from them. But John had sadly passed away and Jenny wasn’t able to do all the heavy lifting.”
So Happy, and his wife, Jaimie, had a chat and decided they were in a position to take the business to the next level.
The project was a little bit removed from what the couple had been doing previously.
“We've come from a mining industry,” Happy said.
Mining is a dangerous business, and Happy had seen terrible accidents, including some that took the lives of his friends and colleagues.
So, it was already in their minds to make a career change when this opportunity arose.
With all the recipes that had made Flavour Collective successful, and new ones taken straight from Happy’s grandmother’s recipe book, the couple got to work.
“We wanted to come along and take over the business, but also expand it,” Happy said.
“We've changed a lot of the recipes. We actually want to give people the taste of fresh fruit in our jams.”
Part of that has included reducing the processed sugar content and increasing the amount of fruit.
“I want people to be aware of the amount of sugar that gets put into some of these jams you buy in the supermarket,” Happy said.
“We wanted to take out a lot of the sugar because we want to give that full freshness of all the fresh fruits.
“We want you to be able to taste the fruit when you have our jams.”
And with the knowledge of his grandmother’s recipes and some of the homemade jams he remembers from his childhood, the updated product range has been a big success.
“I have gone through some of her recipe books, and some of my mum’s, which I’ve got from my dad and other relatives,” he said.
“I think my nan would be pretty proud of me to know that her recipes are still going around.”
Happy and Jaimie’s product range features both sweet and savoury options.
“From our sweet range, we have a fig and ginger,” Happy said.
“We have a raspberry, we have a strawberry, we have a new cling-peach jam, made from clingstone peach.
“We have everything from lemon butter to passionfruit butter in our sweet section.
“And then there’s our savoury products.
“We have our normal relish. We have a black magic relish, which is black garlic infused into the relish.
“We have a chilli relish and a chilli jam. Then we have a beetroot relish and an onion jam. We also do a chutney, and then we have our black garlic itself as its own individual product.”
Everything Flavour Collective produces is made in Benalla, with as much local produce as possible.
You can find Flavour Collective at local markets, and the products are also available in Benalla’s Visitor Information Centre in Mair St.
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