The people behind the products

Meet the Makers

Our makersJohn & Jill's, Manuka honey and propolisXotic Mushrooms, Australian-grown Lion's Mane

Everything we sell comes from a small Australian producer we know by name. These are the two makers behind our range: a family honey brand built in a mother's kitchen, and a Melbourne farm growing single-strain Lion's Mane.

John & Jill's

Started at a family kitchen table

John & Jill's began with Jill Richards, a working mother looking for simple, natural ways to care for her own family. She started experimenting with honey and propolis in 2005, and what began as home remedies for her household slowly grew, over nearly two decades, into a considered range of natural products.

The philosophy has never changed: make the kind of products you would happily give your own children, and extend that care to everyone else's family too. The honey is Australian Leptospermum, gathered from native bushland.

Jill Richards in a beekeeping suit holding up a honeycomb frame covered in bees, full figure

The craft

Raw Manuka honey and native bee propolis

John & Jill's works with 100% Australian raw Manuka honey, kept as close to the hive as possible: unblended, minimally handled and never overheated. High-strength jars carry a guaranteed MGO rating, independently verified.

What makes the range distinctive is the propolis. It is collected from Australian native stingless bees, a resin these tiny bees produce to protect their hives, and it is folded through the honey, candies, lozenges and extracts rather than sold as an afterthought. Every batch is third-party lab tested before it reaches a shelf.

The John & Jill's family at their bushland apiary among the hives

Xotic Mushrooms

Functional mushrooms, done properly

Xotic Mushrooms is a specialty mushroom farm in Melbourne, Victoria, built around one idea: if you want to know exactly what is in a mushroom product, you have to control every step yourself. So the mushrooms are grown, dried and extracted under one roof, with nothing outsourced and nothing imported.

Their Lion's Mane is a single, named strain of Hericium erinaceus, propagated from one culture through to harvest, so the species identity of every batch is known rather than assumed. It is the same strain, grown the same way, box after box.

The Xotic Mushrooms grower holding a freshly harvested Lion's Mane cluster

The craft

Grown on hardwood, harvested by hand

The mushrooms fruit on a hardwood substrate with no grain fillers, the closest practical match to how Lion's Mane grows on fallen timber in the wild. Each flush is hand-harvested at peak density and moved to drying within hours of picking, then extracted and freeze-dried at low temperature to protect the delicate compounds.

Only the fruiting body goes into the extract: no mycelium on grain, no starch carriers, no fillers. Every batch is verified by an independent laboratory before release, which is why we are comfortable putting it in a box with our name on it.

Freshly hand-harvested Lion's Mane mushroom held in gloved hands

Taste their work

Shop the makers' range

Everything John & Jill's and Xotic Mushrooms make for The Fine Food Commons, picked by us and shipped from Australia.

John & Jill's Propolis Manuka Honey 829+

John & Jill's Propolis Manuka Honey 829+

$225.00

Manuka Honey Candy w/Native Bee Propolis

John & Jill's Manuka Honey Candy with Native Bee Propolis

$26.00

Propolis Manuka Honey 1650+

John & Jill's Propolis Manuka Honey Signature Series 1650+

$478.00

Shop the full range