The Lockyer Valley an area regarded as Australia’s food bowl producing some 110,000 tonnes of fresh produce across the region each year. Despite this, a regional food sector report found that there was minimal downstream value adding within the region. This is supported anecdotally by the very small number of fine food purveyors within the region. There is a growth in café culture that is successfully mimicking the successes of capital city enterprises, but towns like Toowoomba largely offer traditional pub food or bistro meals. This project looks at a number of underlying reasons for the resistance to a gourmet food culture in the Darling Downs region. By asking who gourmet food is produced for and who it is produced by, it explores a dichotomy between a rural identity expressed in simple local food, and a city consumer who desires sophisticated local food.

Professor Celmara Pocock

• Dr Daniel Hourigan

• Institute for Resilient Regions
• School of Humanities & Communication

• Anthropology
• Cultural Studies
• Historical Studies
• Other Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
• Other Studies in Human Society

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)