PALISA ANDERSON

TYAGARAH, NSW

An off-hand comment over dinner led to a new and deeply satisfying career in food production.

Let’s not be polite about it – I wanted to get as far away as possible,” Palisa Anderson laughs. Born into the Chat Thai restaurant family, started by her mother, hospitality legend Amy Chanta, Anderson worked in the corporate world for many years before returning to the fold.

“You know that moment when everything aligns and you’re at peace and you just want to be here? I do feel like everything just fell into place when it needed it to,” Anderson says. It was the family's decision to move some of the primary food production of its own food businesses in-house that informed Anderson's next life change.

“We were on holiday in Byron Bay. We knew people there who were growing produce really well and we were already buying from them. And, one night, we were having dinner with one of them and we were like, ‘Okay, now this year we’re going to expand our range of what we want you to grow – here is our wish list.’ And he just looked at it and laughed and said, ‘Why don’t you do that yourself? Next door is for sale.’ We just laughed it off, but my mum woke up the next morning and said, ‘Call the agent, let’s go and have a look at the farm.’”

Today, the organic 43ha Boon Luck Farm at Tyagarah, regenerated with green manure and other nutrients, is lush and productive, boasting orchards and vegetables and herb gardens supplying not only Anderson’s own family restaurants but others, too. Six pallets of herbs, rhizomes, fruit and vegetables are sent south each week.

Anderson admits she learnt on the job, but the farm and growing have become her passions, in particular the subject of soil regeneration.

“When I’ve grown the soil, sourced or saved the seeds and seen through the process of growing, harvesting and packing – to see that food on someone’s plate makes me so happy.”