Creation Supports HBC’s ‘Local is Lekker’ Campaign
The Hermanus Business Chamber recently launched a Support Hermanus – Local is Lekker campaign, and our co-founder and creative director Carolyn Martin was one of the guest speakers at the launch event.
What follows below is her speech:
People often ask me how Creation has been fortunate enough to land so many South African and International awards over the past five years.
And yes, of course, it has called for our Cellarmaster JC Martin’s winemaking philosophy of ‘Working alongside and expressing the beauty of nature’ in making fine wines; it has called for constant innovation that has become a way of life for us; and it has called for our wholehearted embracing of sustainability.
But the awards criteria are far-reaching and demand consistent excellence, calling for an ongoing interrogation of every single aspect of how we do business – from environmental responsibility, to embracing our communities, and where we source our produce.
Local people
Hunter-gathering talent from in and around our local communities was a key pillar of our earliest strategy. Today, we focus on developing the careers of our people at Creation, most of whom come from surrounding schools, towns, and businesses. Actively recruiting from our immediate area, and more recently from the Pebbles Skills Development Centre, has produced an abundance of talent that we will continue to nurture over the years.
This strategy has made all the difference to how our teams pull together, and to the spirit, energy, and authenticity with which we serve our guests in the Tasting Room.
Our Creation people are encouraged to contribute ideas and observations – about anything – from tasting menus to a better way of embracing recycling, or perhaps a dream they might have of improving their skills.
I cannot tell you how much this lively, confident contribution has meant to our business – from driving innovation based on keen observation, to building a stable, committed team.
Several of our people have been with us since the establishment of Creation, over 20 years ago, and this has resulted in greater continuity, stability, and strength as a business.
Local creativity in context
At Creation, we always surround our guests with the work of talented local artists through our indoor/outdoor gallery concept.
Now, we can’t tell whether it is off the glow of a memorable food and wine pairing, or the powerful impact made by the artworks, but we do sell rather a lot of them!
More importantly, our guests can see creativity in context – art, wine and nature in dialogue. Our team doesn’t just present the artworks; they have learnt to be curators, and ambassadors, in their own right.
Mardee Designs, by now well known in and around Hermanus for beautifully hand-painted hats, has a place in our Tasting Room, and it is so rewarding to see the positive response of our guests to these creations, which often wing their way around the world.
Being supportive of talented artists and designers aside, it is our focus on sourcing fresh produce from within an average 80km radius of Creation that delivers what we promise in our mantra: ‘Taste the terroir.’
Sourcing from our immediate surroundings makes good business sense and adds immeasurably to our sustainability goals. But it is never enough to serve dishes that simply look appealing on a plate.
We are passionate about introducing our guests to a palette of tastes unique to our biome. We share with them an authentic story of fresh, hand-made, often organic produce that makes all the difference to the taste and nutrition levels of our ingredients.
This underpins our philosophy of ‘What grows together, goes together.’
Another thing we do is consult with professionals – from scientists and doctors to nutritionists, many of whom live and work around us.
For example, Dr Julienne Fenwick and Nicola Cunningham have been at the heart of our wellness journey.
In our implementation of regenerative agriculture, too, we’ve taken the concept a step further. Professor Sonja Swart and Paula Alexander guide our team in regenerative leadership to help us reflect, connect and explore our lasting impact on families, colleagues and the community.
And here’s the secret…
By embracing the brilliance of others, we strengthen our business strategy, and boost our team spirit and competence immeasurably.
The value of local collaboration
The more we reach out to local suppliers, the more we create collaborative opportunities. The more we all look to supporting our suppliers, the more stable and successful our businesses can be.
Our chefs can see, smell, and taste their way to creating dishes with the same tangible provenance of our wines, which are grown and produced on the slopes of our farm in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge.
Our nutritionally balanced tasting menus change seasonally, a critical part of exposing our guests to nature’s rhythm.
Guests are delighted when we talk about Christine Stevens’ delicate and deliciously subtle floral offerings that we use in home-made teas, fynbos kombucha vinegars, and delicate flowers in edible form in our dishes… Immediately they are exposed to the taste of something unique to our region.
Christine’s flower teas are wonderful alternatives for guests who don’t drink wine but love the tasting menu journey – and if Christine’s floral bounty taps off in Stanford’s microclimate, we are also able to source from Marelize Ivanov’s stock in Tesselaarsdal!
This illustrates how fine-tuned our hunter-gathering has become – and it has helped us discover, to our surprise, that indigenous Impepho can taste different from areas less than 50 km apart.
Such is the hyper-localism of the terroir of our natural flora!
Extraordinary local suppliers and service
We are blessed with a number of sustainably grown vegetable suppliers, from Nikki van Heerden’s farmstall to Alex Guenther’s organic farm.
Grown in rich, well-tended soils, the produce is harvested and in our kitchen in the shortest possible time, to retain flavour and nutrient levels. Greenways in Hermanus also supplies us with specialised ingredients, from black cumin seeds to coconut sugar.
Anyone who has run a restaurant as busy as ours will understand that saving time makes for better financial efficiency. And here we must praise several of our suppliers for their extraordinary service:
· Von Blommensteins, a family-run business, ensures that our fillet portions are delivered cut to exact size, saving our chefs valuable time.
· Margaret Gerber of Wild Peacock debones our chicken portions, immeasurably helping in our preparation.
· Klein River Cheeses has won several awards for the quality and unique taste of their products, and we are proud to share their success with our guests.
These small, well-run businesses are flexible with our needs and understand that quality is absolutely essential for the high standards we set.
If any produce is unavailable for any reason, we adjust our menus accordingly. This agility and authenticity allow nature to take a leading role in what we offer guests.
We work with local artists including:
· Red Hot Glass, who produce our glassware – the little bud vases on the tables.
· Corine Haas from The Potters Gallery, who creates exquisite bespoke crockery to tell the story of our terroir, such as our vine cups and water dishes.
· Jero Revett, the Wildwanderer from Stanford, whose art tells the story of the ocean.
We source our Fine Cape Vintage bags from the Hermanus Factory shop, the little Harrods of Hermanus, and we use local shell suppliers to create our sensorial experience linking the ocean to the land in our ‘Shell Phone’ experience – a way to celebrate our beautiful natural environment which has an impact on the production of fine wine.
Sharing
Last year, we decided as a team to share the details of many of our local suppliers with anyone keen to embrace a healthier way of eating and more sustainable way of living.
We collaborate with Susan Mann of Tastes of Hermanus on food tasting tours that guide people by their senses. This initiative doesn’t only encourage visitors to explore Hermanus, and other towns such as Stanford, but also showcases the quality of what is made and grown right here.
We’d really like to encourage you to explore our local treasures with Susan, whose guided meanders mean that you can literally breathe our Champagne air, and walk – and taste – our talk. Nothing is more memorable than a hands-on, tangible experience to create positive experiences and memories.
We so appreciate the connections and opportunities guides and tour operators create.
In 2019 our Region was recognised as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, the only one in Africa. This was an acknowledgement of our pristine environment in which exquisite ingredients are grown, from stoneground organic wheat and ancient grains to the best sweet potatoes in Napier, the best rye in South Africa, and the most incredible cheese farms such as Anysbos, not to mention the butter from Stonehaven and the BBos trout we source from Lomond, the proteas we source from Bosmans, the amenities from Just Pure – and the list goes on!
In a world that has become overly reliant on the processed and mass-produced, our delivery of seasonal, balanced and nutritional dishes is what discerning visitors will talk about – and actively promote.
I would go as far as to say, it sets off a wave of nostalgia for a time when we were less stressed about interrogating every mouthful of food we eat.
This is the power of ‘local’.
In closing, I believe the Support Hermanus – Local is Lekker campaign is one of the most exciting initiatives to be launched in this region and is likely to be a blueprint for a new way forward – for all of us.
Our mantra of ‘what grows together, goes together’ can as easily apply to the growth of our community and the far-reaching bonds we are able to forge for future prosperity.
We cannot think of a better way of flying the Love Local banner – Thank You!