A role on a reality television show helmed by British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has opened up new opportunities for a Queensland goat farmer and cheesemaker.
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Sunshine Coast entrepreneur Karen Lindsay has been inundated with new orders for her freeze-dried feta thanks to competing on Channel Nine show Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars.
In the show Ramsay has chosen one team of food entrepreneurs vying to receive a $250,000 investment into their businesses from the notoriously foul-mouthed chef himself.
The other team is led by food business mogul and Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, offering up a $250,000 investment of her own.
Each winner will also receive mentoring from either Ramsay or Ms Allis for a year.
Ms Lindsay, who appears on the show as a contestant on Ms Allis' team, runs a small dairy goat herd on her family's banana farm at Wamuran.
Before COVID-19 hit, she supplied goat cheese to more than 60 restaurants but when the pandemic caused orders to dry up, she pivoted to create a world first freeze-dried feta to make use of the surplus milk.
It is that product that saw her land a spot on Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars.
Ms Lindsay described Ramsay as "a real sweetheart".
"He questioned the product because he didn't understand the product... and Janine didn't understand the product until it was explained but then she was taken, I think, because I'm a pretty tenacious, give it a go kind of person," she said.
Ms Lindsay landed on the show after being put forward by the Food and Agribusiness Network and taking part in an interview in Brisbane, ahead of filming in Melbourne.
The show has already translated into new orders from delis and home cooks alike.
"I'm hoping it will reach a lot of rural people, because that's where the product really shines because it's a beautiful dairy product that sits in your pantry," she said.
Ms Lindsay said before making the product she knew that freeze dried cheddar was made in the USA.
"I knew someone who had a freeze dry facility so I threw a batch in and it just took off from there," she said.
"It came out of the freeze dryer and it was perfect first batch.
"In America freeze drying is huge... I've got to find a way with my marketing to show people in Australia what it is, that you can use it as is.
"We went on Landline and it went nuts, 90 per cent of the customers were rural and remote... it's an option they don't have for beautiful fresh feta that you can use a million ways."
Television appearances aside, Ms Lindsay hopes to export the product and is also working on two separate businesses- one selling freeze dried fruit and vegetable powders and another involving AI artistic depictions of Australian animals printed onto merchandise like t-shirts and teacups.