We are thrilled to announce that the café at Perth City Farm is operating again with the wonderful team at Be Free. We hope you’ll come down and enjoy a coffee and a bite to eat.
Be Free will be open every Saturday during our Farmer’s Market from 7AM until 12:30PM for the next few months while they fit out their interior. Stay tuned… the café will be open mid-week later this year.
Introducing Be Free, an organic café at Perth City Farm
Be Free is a family-run café who serve beautifully crafted meals made from organic and locally sourced ingredients. You may recognise Caillan and Alessia, the friendly faces behind Be Free, as they have been buying produce at our Farmer’s Market for a number of years.
Caillan and Alessia were inspired to open Be Free after going through a difficult journey seeing a loved one suffer with cancer. As so often happens, this time of personal hardship lead them to make changes in their own lives. Part of that journey was discovering the difference that the right nutrition makes to human health and well being.
The idea for Be Free was born in 2018, motivated by a desire to make a positive difference in their own community. Serving meals that are delicious, full of nutrition and made with organic and locally sourced ingredients, Caillan and Alessia hope to make organic-eating more accessible and affordable in Perth.
Be Free has been building community and offering nutritious meals from their Subiaco location for the past five years. Now they’re embarking on a new venture, opening their second location at Perth City Farm, and we are thrilled to have them.
We love their mission to empower people to lead healthier, happier lives while running their café in a way that’s kind to the earth. It aligns well with our own mission to enable sustainable and connected lives, guided by the permaculture ethics of earth care, people care, fair share.
Organic meals for human and planetary well being
Using the best, most nutritious ingredients is really important to Caillan and Alessia. Their seasonal menus are created with the understanding that what we eat has a significant impact on our overall well being, and also the well being of the planet.
Why organic?
Eating organically grown food enables us to supply more of the right nutrients to our bodies, without ingesting harmful chemicals.
Organic farming is also kinder to the planet. It avoids the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers which can have harmful effects on humans as well as wildlife and the living soil food web. Instead, organic farming adopts an approach that helps sustain the health of the whole living ecosystem: from humans and non-human animals to microorganisms and fungi in the soil. Entire ecosystems benefit when farming is done organically.
High quality organic produce is our specialty at our weekly Farmer’s Market and we are proud to have a café on site who shares these values.
Local and seasonal foods
Where possible, Be Free chooses to use locally sourced and seasonal ingredients, including some produce from stallholders at our Saturday Farmer’s Market. Buying local means they can support local growers and build the resilience of farmers and makers right here in Perth.
Reducing waste is important to Caillan and Alessia, and by buying local produce they can avoid unnecessary packaging. Plus, the energy it takes to transport local ingredients is only a small fraction of what it takes to ship and process imported produce.
Later in the year, Be Free will be opening a retail section in the cafe where they’ll be selling their popular organic frozen meals as well as some City Farm produced treats like olives, jams and lots of other goodies.
We’re also excited to partner with Be Free in helping with their low-waste mission. Being located on Perth City Farm means they can compost their food scraps and compostable packaging with us directly: a local solution to waste!
Earth Care a crucial mission of Be Free
Some of the great earth-aware initiatives at Be Free include:
- using locally sourced produce (including fruit and vegetables from local growers at our Farmer’s Market)
- going plastic-free where possible
- using compostable packaging
- composting food scraps and coffee grounds
- being a champion of reusable takeaway cups and jars
When you come into Be Free at Perth City Farm, you can bring your own coffee or smoothie cup for takeaway drinks, or use and return a glass jar to the café for a credit. Better yet, slow down and have your coffee dine-in while enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of the garden.
Come and have a cuppa at Be Free, Perth City Farm!
We’d love to see you at Be Free for a coffee and a delicious meal. The café is open every Saturday from 7am to 12.30pm during our Farmer’s Market.
Alessia has a background in architecture and is designing a beautiful interior for the café, so you can expect some comfortable and aesthetic changes in the coming months. Once the interior fit-out is complete, the café will be open during weekdays. All of us at the Perth City Farm office cannot wait!
Caillan, Alessia and the team at Be Free are warm, friendly and kind – a great values-fit for us and we’ve loved welcoming them as part of the Perth City Farm community.
Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear when Be Free opens their doors mid-week.