Sunshine Coast unveils new food trail

Queensland’s Sunshine Coast is leveraging its diverse food culture with the launch of the Sunshine Coast Food Trail.

The Food Trail was launched by chef Peter Kuruvita (Noosa Beach House), at an event at Mooloolaba’s Rockliff Seafoods, whose local spanner crabs are featured on Kuruvita's new national TV program Coastal Kitchen. 

A new interactive website (www.visitsunshinecoast.com/foodtrails) will enable visitors to create their own personalised food trail taking in the region’s best producers, markets, restaurants, cooking schools, events, wineries, and brewers.

The Food Trail has been developed by Visit Sunshine Coast in partnership with Tourism and Events Queensland, the Department of State Development and local councils. 

Visitors will be able to create their own journey with directions to guide them on their tour of the region. The site will be enabled for desktop, tablet and mobile devices.

The aim is to showcase the freshness and rich variety of Sunshine Coast food and produce, while providing new and emerging food operators with the opportunity to promote their produce to a wider audience.

The Sunshine Coast – which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the region’s naming in August 2017 – has been a rich agricultural destination for well over 100 years, based originally on sugar cane, pineapples, and dairy, but now covering everything from feijoas and snails to ginger, macadamias, and world-renowned seafood.

Complementing the growth of the region’s produce has been the expansion of high-quality restaurants, cooking schools, food events, wine producers, and breweries.

The site will provide visitors with full information on the producer or the experience with the location, operating times and contact details.

The drive trails can be designed to suit anything from a half-day ‘taste’ to a multi-day ‘buffet’.

“We believe the Sunshine Coast is qualified to own the title of Queensland’s leading food tourism destination and this new site will help visitors truly engage and interact with the region’s extensive and diverse product mix,” said Simon Latchford, CEO of Visit Sunshine Coast.

“From the region’s earliest days, the Sunshine Coast has been synonymous with food. It was a great dairy region and now we have some of the finest cheesemakers, Buderim Ginger was an early pioneer and now we have an incredible range of Asian-inspired cooking schools, and of course our coast is a fishing haven.

“Vibrant markets such as Eumundi and the Noosa Farmers Markets have allowed specialist producers to blossom.

“The new food trail is aimed at showing that while our beaches and sunshine may be a primary attraction for many tourists, there is far more depth to the region’s tourism menu. The beauty is that you can enjoy time at the beach in the morning and head off to the Hinterland for a food discovery tour in the afternoon.

“Visitors will be able to follow an authentic year-round food tourism trail and add seasonal product and part-time producers to their itineraries, along with key festivals, markets and restaurants that feature Sunshine Coast produce. 

“The food trail covers a region from the Glass House Mountains in the south to the Hinterland and Mary Valley in the west, and north to Noosa and the Gympie region."

Award-winning chef Kuruvita said: "Since moving to the Sunshine Coast three years ago and recently filming the region for SBS Coastal Kitchen, I have been amazed at how the area has expanded both its food scene and variety of produce over recent years.

“We have incredible and abundant seafood, a huge variety of ethical organic produce being farmed covering everything from nomadic chickens, macadamias and indigenous bush tucker to camel milk. The producers are passionate and the local community incredibly supportive of them."

The trail is available at: www.visitsunshinecoast.com/foodtrails