Farm gate goodness in the heart of the city

Farm gate goodness in the heart of the city

Queen Victoria Market’s (QVM) go-to man for milk, eggs and honey Luke Graczyk has been providing locals with the essentials for more than 10 years. 

Market regulars would be well familiar with the Eggporium under Shed I near the corner of Queen and Therry streets with its vast range of produce from some of Australia’s best farms. 

Luke’s family has been in the egg industry for more than 20 years and had been supplying the Eggporium for a long time before Luke took over the business in 2012. Since then, it has truly transformed into a QVM institution, offering eggs of all varieties, milk fresh from the farm gate and more than 200 different product lines of honey. 

“Our main focus is just providing really good, fresh stuff, right in the city which you can’t get most of at the supermarkets. You’d have to go to farm gates to get it so to have access to that sort of produce right here in the city is a real point of difference,” Luke said. 

The Eggporium specialises in providing certified organic and free-range eggs, which compared to their caged counterparts, are packed with more vitamins and nutrients, while containing less cholesterol and saturated fats. 

Whether you’re after organic, free-range, brown, white, duck or even quail eggs, the Eggporium only offers the freshest range of eggs from local farms across Victoria. 

“Eggs, in terms of nutrients, you’re not going to get much better than anything that size; good protein and they provide heaps of different vitamins,” Luke said. 

“All of the milk and eggs come from small family owned suppliers. There are quite a few out in Gippsland and Western Victoria and some closer from Cranbourne, Devon Meadows, Lara, Werribee and there are a couple of interstate farms but most of them are pretty local.”

While eggs might take centre stage at the Eggporium, it’s the stall’s incredible range of honeys that have been attracting growing attention from customers based on increased awareness about their amazing health benefits, according to Luke. 

The stall stocks honeys from Australia and New Zealand with all the varieties you could imagine, such as leatherwood, Manuka, organic, organic, red gum, stringy bark, yellow box, local flora, banksia, clover, jarrah, honeycomb chunks … and the list goes on!

“The health aspects and medicinal uses for honey have been going through the roof in the last few years,” Luke said. “People have really been starting to understand it now so that’s great.”

“Health wise it’s great for cold and flu, immune and gut health and people are using it a lot for external topical stuff now. People often use it for treating infections, tinea on feet, scarring.”

“I actually had one customer who had a huge cancerous tumour hanging off her face and no conventional medicine could get rid of it. After about of year of Manuka on it, it fell off. It was ridiculous and she swears nothing else worked like it.”

“With natural stuff that will work with some people, but others’ makeups are different, and it won’t work as well for them, but the right product on the right person honey can do absolute wonders.” 

While Luke said that the uncertainty and lack of security surrounding the forthcoming renewal of QVM made operating his business somewhat of a challenge at present, he said there was no greater place to work or community to be a part of. 

“It’s the social interaction with traders and customers I love the most. It’s not like any other workplace,” he said. "It’s a massive community here.”

The Eggporium is located at stall 43-45 under I Shed on Queen St. For more information or to order online visit theeggporium.com.au

Since Labor has been in power …

Since Labor has been in power …

March 20th, 2024 - Evan Mulholland
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