Fable Food Co Forage Experience

Fable Food Co Forage Experience.

It’s not all that often that you get to be part of a brand experience that actually lets you see, touch, feel and even forage with one of the company founders and a global expert in their field of mycelium.

It may be rare, but we can tell you from our most recent experience with the Fable Food Co, that it exists and that it will make an evangelist out of you yet!

We are talking of course about the foraging tours in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges organised by Fable Food Co and their team. For anyone interested in learning about the product’s hero, the humble mushroom, and the philosophy and ethos surrounding this wonderful new brand of mushroom-based plant protein, this tour is everything you could possibly hope for.

We say mushroom-based protein here because as we learnt on the tour, technically a mushroom is not a plant and as such the team is still pondering the best possible naming for what is typically considered ‘plant-based meat’.

The Tour

Our tour started with an arrival at a timber mill in the middle of Woodend (in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges region) on a foggy Sunday morning with the temperature just below 9 degrees and fog extremely low. If you were a little less trusting it may almost seem like the start of a bad movie as you wait in an empty car park for instructions. This is all until you see co-founder and mushroom guru Jim Fuller appear with axe in hand and some freshly chopped wood for the roaring fire inside what appears like a mushroom lovers’ clubhouse. As you enter with the group you see the selection of mushrooms and other ingredients strewn across the table for the feast to come later in the morning.  Once Jim begins to talk, he basically doesn’t stop for the rest of the tour! Normally this might be a bit much, but when that someone knows as much about mushrooms, cooking, and the science of it all like Jim, you listen and you don’t stop listening for the entire tour.

Once he has chatted enthusiastically about the brand and the humble mushroom it is then time to head out into the forest for the forage! The group carpooled in order to save on taking too many cars and we were lucky enough to ride with Jim and pick his brain on all things mushrooms and the company. We discussed his background from the barbecue culture of Texas to his work with mushrooms that has taken him around the world and finally to his new home here in Australia with his young family.

Once we arrive and are briefed it’s straight into the forest to forage and find! We certainly weren’t the greatest forages of all time, but did manage to find a few of the desired mushroom varieties and had a great time doing it. What was great about the forage was being out in nature amongst the huge pines of Woodend with a group of enthusiastic forages.

After around 35 minutes we meet back at the cars to discuss the experience, compare our hauls and get ready to head back to ‘the clubhouse’ for the best part of the morning, the feast!

Once back Jim takes it up a notch with a cooking demonstration that was part culinary masterclass and part scientific lecture…it was awesome! The group remained enthralled with the demonstration for around 30 minutes as Jim gave out taste tests of various mushrooms, a soup, a mushroom-based drink, and finally the flagship fable product made in his quintessential Texan barbecue style! It was amazing, and for anyone who isn’t a fan of mushrooms typically, this experience will change all of that without a doubt!

The feast was so well enjoyed that a number of the group remained back to chat with Jim, chat with each other and take in what an amazing ‘brand’ experience they had just had.

We were then given a fable bag, booklet, and product to take home to recreate the mushroom protein we had fallen in love with over the previous 3-hour experience.

Our Final Take

Honesty, it’s really not often you get an experience from a founder that is this generous. For a founder like Jim to put aside his time and to genuinely engage with anyone who is willing to listen is not only rare but priceless for those wanting to learn about the company. We were so impressed by the experience that we hope the enthusiasm will jump out from the screen in this raving review.

We couldn’t recommend it more highly and if you do get a chance to join a tour and experience the brand, then you must. You won’t regret it and you will certainly learn a lot.

To Jim, Anna, and the whole Fable Food Co team, thank you for putting on a true customer experience that wasn’t about you, but about us!

Ed
Editor 
Let’s Go Vegan!

More

Want to see a little more? Below is a video from Renee Buckingham from her tour which gives you even more insight into what the tour looks like and it’s great to see her words echoing our own! Enjoy.

If you enjoyed reading about the Fable Food Co Forage Experience then be sure to check out more reviews at our reviews section here.

LGV!