Star Anise Organic Wholefoods turns 10 with some exciting news!!

Dear friends,

It is quite hard for me to believe that Star Anise Organic Wholefoods is now 10 years old. What started out as very humble beginnings – just a mama on a mission to heal herself and her little family by making nutrient dense food in her home kitchen– has grown into a flourishing company with 20 staff and a retail and online store.  

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each one of YOU from the bottom of my heart for all your support, love and care over the years. I know some of you have been on this journey with me over 10 years (you know who you are!) and some of you are new friends. Even though I have wanted to throw in the towel a billion times over the past decade,  it was your encouragement and support that kept me going. This year has proved extra challenging in ways I can not even begin to express, and it is the power of my community – customers, staff, suppliers and followers - that forms the backbone to my passion project. Amidst the uncertainty and turbulence there is a beautiful light that shines so bright that I am often overwhelmed by its power. And that light is each of you that cumulatively form a community so powerful that we have created a movement and a ripple effect that can be felt across the globe. To all of the people out there who think that you are too small to make an impact, I am here to remind you to never stop believing in the beauty of your dreams. To question mainstream dietary and health advice and to take an alternative path is not  easy. In my 10 years I have been ridiculed, tried to be shut down (numerous times), stolen from and called a zealot and an extremist. But my mission to heal myself and my family, and to make a positive impact on the lives of others and the planet, can not be silenced. That unwavering desire, together with your support, is what drives me day after day. 

To mark our 10th anniversary, I decided that it was time to roll out some big changes and refresh our product range!

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Labels: Our labels have received a facelift! We have begun with the chicken and beef bone broths (our core products), which you will see on our shelves at the end of this week. Over the coming months, we will be upgrading the labels of all our products one by one. Sneak peak below!

Australian Certified Organic: We always use organic ingredients for all our products, and now our beef and chicken broth are officially Australian Certified Organic!

100% Australian grown, made and packed: The ingredients in our broth have changed ever so slightly to remove the imported dried herbs and to replace the imported Himalayan salt with Aussie (Victorian) Pink Lake Salt, making the product 100% Australian grown, made and packed.  This was important to me. The broths are still FODMAPs free, making them unique in the market. 

Packaging & pricing: In line with our ambition to reduce the company’s carbon footprint, we decided to discontinue the 500ml beef and chicken broths in the cardboard containers (with plastic lids). We will continue to supply our 500ml and 1L sizes of chicken and beef broth in glass jars only. The price of the 500ml chicken and beef broth in glass jars will stay the same ($14/500ml), and we are happy to announce that the 1L has reduced to $24/1L, making it more affordable to you and is priced at the equivalent of 2x 500ml cardboard containers (plus you get to keep a glass jar! 

Shelf life: The chicken and beef bone broths are now fridge stable with a 1-year shelf life. We recently trialled our fridge stable broths at Broth Bar & Larder and customers overwhelmingly loved the convenience of always having fresh broth on hand. So no need to ever freeze broth! Yay! Keep a whole stash in your fridge to consume over the year. Handy when returning from a long trip. 

What doesn’t change: The vegetable (vegan) broth and fish broth, as well as our range of soups, are currently still available in 500ml cardboard containers as well as 500ml glass jars and are available frozen only.  

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We pride ourselves on setting the standard in the Australian organic artisan wholefood industry, and for being the pioneers in broth manufacturing in Australia – being the first to make and sell broth commercially in Australia (well before paleo was even a thing or broth became trendy). With 10 years under our belt, we are committed to continuing to provide the community with the cleanest, ethically-sourced and traditionally prepared whole foods for vibrant health and longevity. I am proud to say that Star Anise Organic Wholefoods still is a local artisan business and still 100% owned by a single mama (me!) on a serious mission to inspire and empower as many people as I can to be conscious consumers and to nourish themselves with the nutrient dense traditional wholefoods that we as a species have evolved to eat.

I hope that you love the new branding and are as excited about these changes as much as I am. 

Thank you again for your love and support!

Love Soulla xx

Join me for a bone broth and slow cook cooking demo with WAPF!

Compared to our grandparent’s and great grandparent’s generation, as a society we’ve become more disconnected from our food system. So much so that I sometimes sense that cooking has become a revolutionary act…when it fact it should be an evolutionary process where the basic skills are learnt from the previous generation, and impressed upon us as essential as learning how to drive or tie one’s shoe laces. Somewhere along the line, the fast food culture of recent decades and Big Food has us convinced that cooking is time consuming, expensive and difficult. My craft and mission is to show you how cooking deliciously nourishing meals made with nutrient dense ingredients can be quick, easy, and simple (and cost next to nothing). 

Learning how to purchase and cook real food is the single most profound act you can do to reclaiming and maintaining your and your family’s health. Period. 

That’s why I’m teaming up with Weston A Price Foundation to show you how to make two traditional wholefoods kitchen staples - a gelatinous bone broth and a slow cooked casserole via live zoom webinar on Wed 5th August 7pm - 8:30pm.

Cooking is one of my favourite ways to show love for the people in my life. It brings people together and fosters a sense of much needed community that is engrained in the very fabric of our ancient DNA. You can use the skills learnt to not only nourish your immediate family but to throw dinner parties that take less than 30 minutes of prep time that will impress the pants off your guests…but tell them that they can leave their pants on….or not ;-) 

You can register for $15 here and the proceeds all go to the Weston A Price Foundation which is a non profit organisation whose mission is to educate the public on the benefits of nutrient dense traditional wholefoods. I really do hope that you’ll join us so that we can cook together! 

Let’s make the most of this strange time in human history by focusing on what is really important to us -  learning the art and skill of cooking real, honest, nourishing wholesome food that simultaneously boosts our immune system and nourishes our soul.

 Join here!!

Food as Medicine talk: 1 August via ZOOM webinar – tickets on sale now!

Following my SOLD OUT Food as Medicine talk on 23 May 2020 I am holding another on SAT 1 AUGUST via zoom webinar so you can attend from the comfort of your own home – wherever that may be. 

My co-presenter is Marieke Rodenstein - Australia’s pre eminent holistic dietician, GAPS practitioner and staunch advocate of organic & regenerative farming practices and traditional wholefoods. We have been touring Australia for over 1 year to spread our message that food is still the most powerful medicine. We think it is now more important than ever before that people focus on improving their health and building strong immunity and resilience naturally. 

We are excited that people are finally seeing robust health as a necessity and not as a luxury though many are still confused as to how to achieve this. This is where we come in and explain the fundamentals of robust nutrition and robust gut health to clear the confusion and set you on a stellar path towards robust health. 

Adopting a nutrient-dense traditional wholefoods diet is still the single most important step you can take to improve and maintain your health. Addressing the other lifestyle factors or pillars of health that we will discuss will further bolster your health and resilience.

Because a delicious wholefoods lunch can not be provided as we do in our in person talks, instead I will be gifting each participant up to 5 of my online cooking classes (retailing at $79 each) so that you can learn how to make your own bone broth, slow cooks, organ meat meals, chocolate and GF baked cakes in your home (that’s $395 worth of cooking classes for free!!!!). As I’ve always argued, cooking and preparing your own nourishing meals at home is the fastest, most profound (and cheapest) way to vibrant health. Now that we are eating out less and forced to eat in more (whether we want to or not!) home cooking is taking on greater importance in our lives and knowing how to master the wholefoods staples is essential.

As part of the talk (9am-2pm) you will receive a comprehensive 63 page Food as Medicine how-to manual that sets you up for life with all of the information covered in the talk including shopping lists, healthy swap table, list of recommended holistic practitioners, meal formulas, and practical how to etc.

Click here to learn more or purchase a ticket

Tickets will sell out fast, so please book early to avoid disappointment!