Page 40 - Adnews magazine Sep-Oct 2022

Feature
Inside Buy From The Bush
The zero budget campaign came out of nowhere to help regional Australia from the economic impact of bushfires.
The Buy From The Bush (BFTB) campaign was created and founded by Grace Brennan in 2019 at Warren in the Orana region of NSW. The initiative was created to showcase products from businesses in rural communities hit by a cash flow-sapping drought.
It all began as a simple Instagram account highlighting the beautiful and easily accessible goods available from rural communities around NSW facing drought.
All rural businesses, both small and established were encouraged to use the hashtag #buyfromthebush on their social posts to curate a social media feed filled with locals favourites.
After only 7 weeks of the account being established @buyfromthe- bush had over 130,000 followers on Instagram and had increased rural postage figures by 30%.
Independent creative director Adrian Elton credits the success of the campaign to the necessity it created in order highlight not only the beauty, but the economic struggle facing rural Australia.
Elton said: “If a casual stroll along some of Melbourne’s most popular high streets provides a harrowing snapshot of the grueling conditions facing many small retailers, one can only imagine how much harder it must be for those rural retailers, far from the footfall of paying pedes- trians. “
“Fortuitously the ‘Buy From The Bush’ campaign was launched in 2019 in response to the catastrophic droughts. Little could they have anticipated what a lifeline that would soon become with the bushfires and pandemic just around the corner.”
Buy From The Bush remains a free mail order system that has helped rural businesses. The easy and free of charge accessibility to the system is one of the reasons why Buy From The Bush is attractive to rural business owners.
“The growth of Buy From The Bush has clearly demonstrated the talent and ingenuity of rural makers, creators, artists and retailers launch- ing and scaling businesses from the middle of nowhere," says Grace Brennan, founder of Buy From The Bush.
Canowindra local Chris Cuddy, owner of Perennialle Plants spoke with AdNews about the life changing experience Buy From The Bush had for him and his family.
WORDS BY
TAYLA FOSTER
Cuddy lives in a town of 200 people. When the drought dried up so