Up until a few years ago, when there was bread making in the offing, I would head across to the coast, just over an hour away, to buy different flours, grains, seeds and other provisions at the local health food store in the town where my mother lives. Then one day in Colac I discovered that the shoe store had ‘stepped out’ in not quite the way that one might expect: some of the window space was given over to whole-foods. In a space inside the shoe store I could buy everything on my bread making list that had previously taken most of my morning or afternoon.
Jo De Lorenzo started Jo’s Pantry with a small section of a shoe store and an enormous amount of enthusiasm and tenacity for good quality food — and, a capacity for hard work. The shoe store, in Murray Street, Colac, is The Foot Man, run by Jo’s husband Frank, whose reputation for sorting out troublesome feet is renowned in these parts. A friend who is a walking enthusiast and who had just completed a long walk in Central Australia told me, “I couldn’t have done that walk had Frank not sorted my feet out and made sure my boots were right. As far as I am concerned the man walks on water!”
That is some reputation, but today, just over five years since its launch, Jo’s Pantry has added its own big reputation to 72, Murray Street. This would surprise none of Jo’s customers. From a basic stock of health foods she has expanded the business with her unique blend of enthusiasm, concern for her local community, the environment and sustainability and an enduring and endearing curiosity. How well I remember when our household was in full bread making experimentation mode and there were trips into town seeking out both common and more exotic and obscure ingredients. Anything unfamiliar Jo would ask, “Now how do you use that?” Sometimes she could suggest an alternative but even some of the more ‘weird and wonderfuls’, more often than not I would receive a phone or text to say, “I’ve found it!”, or “It will be in next week”.
Such service has helped Jo’s Pantry to grow steadily and organically to the point where it now occupies both sides of the double fronted shop. The original health food shelves and little ‘cubby hole’ inside the show store have expanded to offer a wide range of whole foods. The local fresh produce seems to have morphed into its own section; the range of gluten free products, including breads, now occupies significant shelf space. The bulk supplies of ingredients such as flour, nuts, dried fruit and pulses as well as household items such as detergents and eco and skin friendly soaps and creams have taken on a life of their own. With every new range or extra item, Jo’s footprint has grown but the footprint on floor space became indelible when the coffee machine, that still serves the most delicious coffee around, arrived. My only complaint with this addition is that the goodies, many from Leah Bakes, that often sit on the counter for contemplation while the coffee is made are just too good and too tempting.
Like so many food businesses, the pandemic has brought some changes to Jo’s Pantry. Social distancing, hand sanitising and phoning or emailing through orders, have all helped not only to sustain but to enhance the shop’s friendly atmosphere. It has the warm buzz of a general store, where customers are recognised, come in for a chat as they shop or, in recent times, collect their orders or order a coffee.
With farming and small food producers within a close radius, Jo’s Pantry is a hub for Western District produce. Local producers include Schultz Dairy, Buukaar Waaruung honey, further west, Gorge Chocolates then closer to home, all the Otway crowd that includes Otway Pasta, Otway Fields, Otway Chai, Platypi Chocolates, all the organic vegetables then very close to base, Irrewarra Sourdough. There are selected products from a little further afield, but this has been a little problematic with Melbourne now in stage 4 lockdown. Jo says that initially, in the first lockdown, customers panicked and there was an unusual rush to buy, but in the second lockdown buying behaviour has been much more orderly and she thinks that this is possibly because people realised that the shortages that many had envisaged during the first wave simply didn’t happen.
Trying to help their customers, their suppliers and their local community through these days of lockdown, health warnings and the sudden spike of cases in the Colac Otway region, is an extension of what Jo’s Pantry has always been about. Under this new regime customers are asked to sanitise their hands before entering the store, to wait a minute or two if there are too many in the store and those who are in the store for more than 15 minutes are asked to leave their details. To help customers in Birregurra and Dean’s Marsh, Jo’s Pantry now does a weekly delivery every Friday. Life in Victoria’s regions is about to head back to something resembling normal so I will be able to once again wait for my coffee, in my newly adjusted shoes or walking boots, contemplate which of the sweet delicacies of a thousand calories to eat with said coffee, cross the street to the park to consume it and step out to walk it all off. A wholefoods store and a shoe store might, at first glance, seem a strange combination, but, when you think about it for a second — exercise and good food — it’s a perfect combination, amazing nobody thought of it before.
Jo’s Pantry, 72 Murray Street, Colac, 3250. T: 52321111
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