Food*Style meets goodMix

Words and Images: Phoebe Grealy/Food*Style. Earlier this week week I met the world's most reluctant organic food entrepreneur. Jeanie, a naturopath of 12 years, came up with the gluten-free, organic breakfast offering goodMix, but it nearly didn't happen. It all started as a result of working for many years in a health food store. When people asked her opinion on healthy breakfast options, she didn't quite know what to tell them. 'I never had a clear and honest recommendation I could give,' Jeanie said. 'This one would be good, if it didn't have that in it - or that one would be good, if they added something to it.' Over time, she played around with the ingredients and came up with what she considered the best mix: a healthy combination that she was happy to serve to her kids for breakfast. Content, that's basically where the story ended. Or would have, except for Brad, Jeanie's partner and the absolute yang to her yin. Brad, a fitness trainer, started providing the mix to his clients after training because of its high protein content. When the guys started requesting it, he knew Jeanie was on to something. He convinced her to sell her own product and from there goodMix was born. The combination that includes organic chia seeds, almonds, coconut, puffed amaranth, raw cacao nibs and goji berries is now garnering a following at Farmers Markets around Brisbane and the Gold Coast: Palm Beach, Burleigh, Miami and the Jan Powers Brisbane Farmers Markets to name a few. As you would expect, goodMix is a hit with healthy living, organic-buying market goers, but intriguingly there's another market segment that is really into it: people looking for something to assist with, ahem, 'digestive issues'. Not one to beat around the bush, Brad quips: 'It gives you the best poos ever!' Jeanie puts it another way: 'I tell my clients it's like a facial for your insides.' I gave it to some of my own non-health nut friends to try and the response was: 'it does, ah, deliver on it's claims!' Most people use goodMix as a breakfast with yoghurt, but customers are coming up with novel ways to incorporate in other meals. 'People put it in their smoothies or biscuits,' Brad says. 'But one guy adds it to guacamole! It also goes well on top of ice cream.' I notice their advertising includes a clever play on one of my favourite quotes. 'Let food be your medicine...and let medicine be yummy' its says, a line most copywriters would be happy to claim ownership of. Who wrote that? Humble as ever, Jeanie replies, 'Oh, that was just something I wrote on the board outside our stall.' Words and Images: Phoebe Grealy/Food*Style