The craft bakers who make up the Grainz community gathered together at the end of May for the first time since 2019. Poignantly, it was also their first gathering since John Reid, one of the founding members lost his battle with cancer.

The previous two Grainz were held at Reid’s RedBeard Historic Bakery in Trentham, Victoria, and again it was the first meeting point in 2022, providing a deep sense of significance amongst the attendees.

Set in the beautiful and picturesque Jonai Farms just outside Daylesford, and hosted by Tammy Jonais, the humble gathering made some very significant steps forward.

After eight years, Grainz has now officially become part of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, who align deeply with the group’s core values.

Back in 2014, four bakers had managed to gather flour fanatics together of every age and from every district via Instagram. Ian Lowe of Apiece Bakery, Michael James, then-owner of Tivoli Road Bakery, Time Beylie (owner of Bread Club) and Phillip Agnew from Pips Bread had noticed that the traffic on their accounts contained many mutual exchanges on techniques, process and results relating to all things grain. They were abreast of similar groups forming and growing overseas, and being generous sharers of information, experiences and advice, they offered the opportunity for this.

Andrea Barbazon of Loafer Bread and Michael James both opened their bakeries to around 30 people to come and go from, then an excursion to John Reid’s RedBeard Bakery in Trentham, punctuated by city walks to book shops and restaurants, all provided ample time for everyone to get to know each other. Technical demonstrations as well as milling talk by Bryce Woods of Woods Organic Mill rounded out a couple of very full days away from the bakery, with immediate plans for a similar event being discussed the following year.

The essence of the event has not changed since its inception—meet, share, learn and connect with like-minded people, with shared passions.