When Jo Freeman, lawyer and mother of two small children, was looking for a way to foster a greater sense of community in her neigbourhood, a suggestion that she start a farmers’ market captured her imagination.

In the process of developing the Hill St farmers’ market in Thorndon, Jo quickly realised that there were numerous people who, whilst passionate about buying fresh local produce, are unable to get to the markets on the weekend. The obvious solution to this problem was Urban Harvest, Wellington’s online local fresh food market.

Now, just over a year old, Urban Harvest’s mantra is ‘feeding you well, saving you time and making life simple’ and customers in the greater Wellington region are able to order online and have pantry staples and a mouth-watering array of treats, delivered twice a week. Jo believes that the beauty of really good local food is that you can create very simple but delicious meals quickly and with the minimum amount of fuss. And what she’s trying to do with Urban Harvest is to make it really simple to source the food.

During the very first NourisHer evening, Jo shared her story of founding Urban Harvest and her passion for locally sourced, simple delicious food. Sharing the ‘stage’ with her was one of Urban Harvest’s producers, Helen Meehan of Olivo in Martinborough, who taught us a little about olive oil and demonstrated how to make gazpacho and a wickedly good dessert which was simply a scoop of vanilla icecream, a splash of orange infused olive oil and shavings of dark chocolate.