Salsa soil super juice
Salsa food scraps put to good use
Popular Port Douglas restaurant Salsa has not only found a way to get rid of their food waste but help our environment through their ‘Salsa’s Soil Super Juice’.
The germ of an idea started in 2019 when Salsa conducted an energy audit to see how they could be cleaner, greener and make use of that leftover food at the end of the day. Three years later and they have not only solved the problem but created a clean and green business.
Jess Uhlig from Salsa is a woman who likes a scrap, in fact the more scraps the better. In a small factory unit out at Craiglie she pushes left over food like seafood, greens, coffee, poultry, eggshells and so much more down a special insinkerator to demonstrate to Newsport how this soil super juice is made.
“After that first step, its left to ferment in barrels for 28 days and then microbes are added which then pulls the nutrients out of the food waste with the microbes multiplying to produce this soil super juice,” said Jess.
After it’s been filtered it looks good enough to drink, of course you wouldn’t, but soil loves gulping it down..
Jess told Newsport “the food waste problem is so much bigger than Salsa, so we joined forces with Green Food Australia to produce this microbe party for the soil”.
They call it xlr8bio and with prolonged use it promises to significantly reduce the use of harmful fertilizers and with run off a huge problem for our oceans and reefs, this is definitely food for thought. The only other thing it contains is water, cane syrup and yeast.
Other benefits include
- Improves soil structure
- Less fertilizer needed
- Unlocks soil nutrients
- Mobilizes phosphorus
- Less water used and the list goes on
Local farmers keen
“I have been having meetings with local farmers at Mossman and obviously with the prices of Urea going through the roof they are looking for alternatives” Jess said.
Urea comes from China, and they make synthetic fertilizer from it, but the worlds stocks are slowly running out.
“Urea is Nitrogen and Nitrogen is one of the main components of this super juice we make,” said Jess.
Besides the soil juice Salsa and their green partners are turning out a second product where, after that fermentation process, the pulp is mixed with landscaper’s waste to create a form of topsoil known as ‘Humi’, an accelerated version of compost.
Combine the juice and ‘Humi’ and the results are amazing says Jess, “the two of them together would eliminate the need for any fertilizer, herbicide, pesticides or any other inputs”.
Working with a local farmer Jess said trials will soon be conducted on blocks where the soil is too badly damaged to grow cane to see if the super juice and Humi can make it useable again.