CERES Organic Market

If I actually lived in Victoria, I’d be visiting CERES organic market every week. Possibly twice a week, for the still-​warm Isa Brown hen’s eggs and the rustic beet and lentil salad. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel better about this generation of humanity, despite the continuation of Today Tonight’s ‘neighbours at war’ series (srsly, when will that program end? Sorry. I digress).
Established in 1982, CERES is primarily a ‘sustainability centre’ incorporating environmental education programs, urban agriculture projects, green technology demos and a number of social enterprises (including the market, grocery and café, community kitchen, organic online supermarket and a bushfood nursery. Whoa). Nestled on a sun drenched hill, the centre offers the most down-​to-​earth of shopping experiences, with live country music, roving chickens, bartering farmers (filling bags with swapped produce) and a friendly café set up under the most basic of metal awnings.
We visited CERES on a warm summer morning after breakfast in a neighbouring suburb of Melbourne. I immediately wished that I’d left more room in my stomach after spying some homemade pies, but instead I grabbed some ginger kombucha (from the organic grocery) and wandered around the well-​tended nursery. This place is seriously beautiful. It radiates an air of calm, back-​to-​basics hospitality that’s been generally lost from modern-​day shopping venues. You can roam to your heart’s content amongst a sea of green before filling a canvas bag with organic produce from the farmer’s market. The centre also encourages consumers to bring in recycled jars to be filled with organic bulk foods, nut butters and environmentally-​friendly cleaning products whilst trying some delicious samples along the way (no, not the cleaning products — though they *are* phosphate and surfectant-​free).
There’s genuinely not a plastic bag in sight.
If you live in the Melbourne CBD or suburbs and aren’t visiting CERES, you’re seriously missing out. Go. Eat the beet salad, meet a chicken, buy an egg. Back these awesome Victorians in their mission to support both local farmers and the natural environment.

Over the moon with Ceres. We happened to notice it on the way to our daughters appointment and we were a bit early so stopped in.
What an awesome place to go for a great learning experience, cultural experience and yummy food too!
We wandered the grounds for a bit and checked out all the information, community gardens, art gallery in the train, playground, animals, cultural areas and then headed back up to the organic market for some food.
I had the beetroot and carrot salad and hubby had a sausage roll. My food was so so so yummy. Prices were a little steep but definitely worth it. Free water from the urn and plenty of people keeping the atmosphere lively and fun.
It was a big shame we had to leave and we will be coming back when she is a bit older and we have more time to investigate. Highly recommended.

OK, we are new to the area. We have come from a pretty far out land called Cranbourne. But OMG i love this place. There are chickens roaming around, and you can buy their eggs. There are green houses everywhere, that puts my past veggie garden to shame. You can buy any kind of plant/​seed/​fruit known to man here. I almost wanna live here!!! One day soon we are gonna shop up a storm here and i’m gonna buy some many plants i almost won’t need to come back (which i know sounds bad but its actually good!!!)

If you haven’t been here you absolutely must check it out. CERES named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, is a community run park with the goals largely set out by its acronym: Centre for Education & Research in Environental Strategies. In recent years they have moved to set up a bunch of community hub projects to get more people involved and help turn a profit for the cause.
If you turn up to CERES you can walk around the park through the beautiful gardens and water features; or you can check out the fully fledged plant nursery, organic markets and the café. They also have an events centre called the Merri Table, which is a bar & function restaurant serving up organic food.
The nursery is remarkably cheap and has a fantastic range of plants. They also have a station where you can return your old plastic plant pots or pick up free ones from others that have returned theirs. The market is set around the organic farm, which is a beautiful setting to buy the delectable range or organic food sold here 9am-​2pm every Weds, Fri and Sat. And the café is set within the gardens of CERES and they serve up a range of food, drinks and coffee — which to be honest are all pretty average and overpriced. But then again the setting does kind of make up for that lack.
CERES also hosts a range of outdoor music festivals and events, so keep an eye out on their website in case you miss out!

I meet my hippy friend and his children at Ceres for a coffee from time to time and the kids go mad for it. And hey, any not-​for-​profit that’s into educating peeps on the benefits of sustainable living and environmentally sound concepts… Sure, I’ll buy into that.
The place spans a corner of the Merri Creek (one of my favourite little Melbourne secrets) and is a maze of buildings, gardens, sculptures and miscellaneous niches. There’s a restaurant, nursery and café on site and they’ve just completed a major expansion, which I must admit I haven’t ventured into yet.
The café can be slightly frustrating in terms of wait times and they switch to table service on weekends, which doesn’t seem to work. The nursery is a cracker (all organic), but can fall into similarly undermanned territory and often we’ve had trouble getting much advice or general service.
This place does serve an amazing function, however, and I’d never let a few customer service issues get in the way of good grubby fun and education.

CERES — or Centre for Education & Research in Environmental Strategies — is a non-​profit environmental and educational organisation and ‘urban farm’ situated in Melbourne’s East Brunswick.
Boasting a permaculture nursery, organic market, restaurant, café, function centre, educational programmes, workshops and courses and the occasional kick ass music festival and offering free entry to all, CERES is nothing less than an environmentally friendly; sustainable, and decidedly local Melbourne institution.
I’d recommend a visit to CERES organic market and a trip to its café as well as a mozey around the environment park’s nursery where you can buy plants to take home to your own urban oasis.
And with all nursery staff ‘qualified in Horticulture and Permaculture’ and being passionate about teaching urbanites how to grow their own food, I promise you’ll leave feeling a little less green.

If you like to know exactly where your fruit and vegetables come from, how they were grown, who they were grown by and if anything weird but probably not wonderful has been sprayed on them, you need to get down to the CERES farmer’s market.
CERES is a community environment park by Merri Creek in Brunswick East, and their delightful, organic, farmer’s market occurs three times each week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9am to 2pm. Get your veg here and you’ll not only ensure you get your five-​a-​day, but that you’re buying food that hasn’t been flown from the other side of the world, that you’re supporting small sustainable growers, and that what you eat will be organic.
It just so happens that the market is set amongst beautiful, urban farmland against the backdrop of a gentle creek. If you have kids in tow, they’ll love the happy chickens roaming about and the little playground and sandpit.
And here’s my big tip — and I can’t believe I’m telling you this because now you and I will be fighting over the silverbeet — if you get to the market in the last half hour before close, chances are they’ll have reduced the price of much of the produce by half.
Don’t forget to bring your own bags!