Supplying high-end restaurants like Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, Victorian edible flower grower Lauren Richardson is busily trying to keep up with a niche, but quickly growing, foodie craze.
Ms Richardson and her employees have just finished picking and packing 300 punnets of edible flowers and leaves. Every week she drives 1,500 punnets from the farm near Daylesford to the Melbourne Wholesale Market, where they are sold off the market floor.
"We started with about five different varieties," she said.
"We've added more aromatic and impressive flowers, like the pineapple sage, that really enhance the dish rather than are just decorative." Ms Richardson's passion for the food source flourished while working in a side job during university at the appropriately named Flowerdale Farm, which primarily grows sprouts and micro greens.
