Adam Mumford

Hi, Adam. How are you?

I'm very well. How are you?

Good, thank you. I'm down in Melbourne. It's a really glorious, sunny day.

I'm up in the North Coast, in Ballina. It's a glorious sunny day here, too. Beautiful.

I'm so happy to talk to you, especially given that yesterday was, RUOK day and there's so much talk around mental health and wellbeing these days.

Thanks for the time, too. Look, I'll let you know as we start, I was diagnosed with head and neck cancer 10 weeks ago and today is my last day of treatment. I have had 35 radiation days as of today, and I had seven chemo days over the last seven weeks. When I went in for my final check yesterday, the doctors couldn't believe that I'm still talking and eating and everything. They said by week three or four hat I would have to use a stomach tube to eat and everything. But I got that removed and I'm still eating five meals a day, but I suppose I was just very thankful for the experience. And every day I've just driven in with that mindset of absolutely embracing and literally relishing in what I'm actually achieving and where it's going to take me later for Soult and the share days that I have in mind.

Absolutely. My goodness. What a journey you've been on, and your family.

It's been pretty incredible actually. My brother took his life in 2018, July 15th. I was with him from 6.30 to seven o'clock. He'd been looking after my dog for the weekend. I'd taken the kids away. When we got home, I went to pick up the dog and I saw that he came in the house with some beer and a bottle of wine. He had just gone through a a breakup with his partner, and he'd been having a bit of a hard time at work. I brought the kids home and the dog, and then I just said to my partner, look, I want to go back around and just have a bit of a check on him. So I went back around to his house and I just realized he'd had two beers and, you know, just having a glass of wine. I thought, that's fine. I wasn't even thinking of what was going to play out. I was more worried about whether he was going to ring his ex-girlfriend or make a nuisance of himself or something like that. That was all I was considering. I was with him for about half an hour, and we just talked, and I said, would you like to come around and stay at my place? Just stay the night and you can have a have a couple of drinks if you feel like or whatever, but he said, no. Then I left. I gave him a hug. I said, I love you, brother. He said, I love you too, my bro. Then I just drove off and gave a wave, but didn't realize that would be the last time that I would see him alive. I left him at around about seven o'clock. Then I got a call at around about quarter to nine because my phone number was the last number in his phone, from the police, first off saying they want to come to my place, and I said, no and I wanted to know what was going on? I asked if he had done something silly, was he in the lockup or something like that? And no, it wasn't that. I made them tell me and they said, no, your brother's passed away and we need you to come around and identify the body. I went back with a very good friend of mine, a very good friend of Jason's to help me do that. That around about quarter past nine, that same night. Two and a half hours after I'd seen him alive for the last time. That had a very big impact on me, obviously. Then obviously the phone call I'd had to make to mum and to his sons and all of that sort of stuff. I was watching the Book Thief at that time, that movie, the Book Thief. I could never watch the Book Thief again. You have that scarring.

It took around about six months before all of this took place. Jason told me that he'd been having some hassles with staff at work. He worked with Lismore City Council, and he was in charge of the Lismore City Centre. He did a fantastic job, created things like Eat the Street, come to the Heart, all of that, really promoting the area of Lismore. But he said hed love to just get out and what he really wanted to do was to set up a pure chip shop that just sells chips with different flavoured salts. He'd owned cafes in Sydney and things like that in his past. He was always cooking. He was just a foodie at heart. When he said that, I laughed and thought, oh, yeah, okay. But then I thought about it and said that's a great idea, you know, you should get into that. Go find a little kiosk down on the beach or something, and that could be a really beautiful life. He didn't actually get to live that dream.

That's when I created, first off it was called Chip in with Jase. We created a van and I did it with a friend of mine, an ex-chef and my partner as well, she'd been very heavily involved in social work.

We created Chip in with Jase, and we launched it at Eat the Street, which was his festival that he created in 2015 and had been running annually. We launched it in 2019 at Eat the Street. We launched it with some flavours that had meaning to him. When we couldn't get enough volunteers throughout that year with that van, I ended up selling the van and giving the proceeds back to Standby and to Headspace. They were the two foundations that I wanted to support at that time, Standby were fantastic after Jason passed, support after suicide.

I sold the van, but everyone was calling for the salts, they said we loved these salts.So then I created Soult; Salt with Soul. I ended up launching that in February. It took me a while because I just wanted to do it all the right way. We started selling online and then a lot of the local people up around Lennox Head and Ballina and Lismore got behind it. We ended up having around about 30 to 50 stockists up here as well. Everyone was just totally supportive. Then Australia Post in Lennox Head kept on reordering, selling out and reordering. One of our charities for Soult is Healthy Heads in Trucks and Sheds. The ambassador is Lindsay Fox and the chairperson is Paul Graham, the CEO of Australia Post. I reached out to Naomi, the CEO for Healthy Heads and asked, is there any chance we could get an introduction to Australia Post because Australia Post is probably one of the biggest sellers here at the moment in Lennox Head. She put us in contact with the right people, and Australia Post got behind it, and now Australia Post have got us in 200 of their stores across Australia.

Wow. That's interesting, because when I looked on the website to see who the stockists were, it did keep coming up with Australia Post which I couldn't quite get my head around.

It's such a beautiful story because where my brother ended up, his final resting place. Yeah. used to be my office in Lennox Head, and it was literally behind the Australia Post. There was just so much meaning in this as well.

And you are using Murray River Salt?

That's right. We are buying salt from Murray River Salt, but it is salt from the Murray River Basin. We are not saying its Murray River Salt, because that's their salt. The salt that we are getting is all sustainable and ethically sourced from the Murray River Basin. This has to be a clean product because a hundred per cent of our profits go to those mental health foundations: Healthy Heads and Trucks and Sheds, Mental Wheels, Stand By Support after suicide and the Healthy Minds Club. So the product had to match what we were doing there in our give back. The packaging had to be recyclable. Everything inside had to be clean. Our herbs are all coming from Austral herbs in Kentucky South, near Armadale. And they're all organic. We get our chocolate from Spencer, which is in Mudgee, and this is chocolate that's coming from Vanuatu, the Australian owner goes over and he's helped create sustainable farming for them in Vanuatu. He buys it, and it's organic as well. He buys it at above trade rates as well. Everything about the product, we wanted to make real, and we wanted to make sure that everyone knew that we're doing this for the right reasons.

Absolutely. And how did you settle on the four flavours that you've got?

They were based on what my brother loved. The lemon myrtle salt, for example, that was a memory of my brother and I growing up around the beaches in Northern New South Wales. It is in memory of my brother's love of seafood and the beach. We used to just grab lemon myrtle, smash it up, dry it, and then throw it on some fresh fish. And it was just so beautiful. So with our lemon myrtle salt, we're just doing it on prawn and pineapple skewers, fresh on the barbecue, they just come out amazing.

The rosemary and garlic is in memory of my brother's barbecues and Sunday roast. When I'm cooking with it, I can smell him standing next to me. Our chilli chocolate – my brother loved Mexican mole. So this in memory of my brother's Monday night Mexican mole. Then the last one, he had a sweet tooth second to none. So we did Salty Sweet in memory of my brother's sweet tooth. Thats where we came up with those four original flavours.

Oh, I love that. I'm looking at your recipes on the website, and the photography is so good. It makes me just want to make the chocolate pavlova with the chilli chocolate salt and looking at the damper, I actually had a chat to Ranger Nick, who I see uses your salt as well.

He's awesome, Ranger Nick, I met Ranger Nick a couple of times. We're actually going to do a bit of a cook up together at some stage as well. He's such an awesome guy, and I love Ranger Nick's products as well, they're just absolutely beautiful, and once again, he's just so down to earth. It just makes for a really nice credible little partnership with Ranger Nick too.

The Mediterranean lamb with the rosemary and garlic sounds delicious.

Yes and then the one that really shocks everyone, I've done it a few times now, is the cauliflower with chilli chocolate salt. You just oil cauliflower steaks and then sprinkle the salt and throw it straight on the barbecue. As soon as it softens, you take it off, smash it up, throw into tacos or whatever. I normally do tacos with a bit of pico de gallo, but you can just have it straight by itself. The kids absolutely love it. So there's different ways of getting veggies into your kids too.

Absolutely. And cauliflower's one of those ones, if you grew up around my age, everything was boiled and cauliflower was a horror, but now it's just coming into its own, isn't it?

That is so true. I'm 53 now, and your mum nasically boiled the broccoli and cauliflower to a pretty much melting stage. She's going to hate me saying that, by the way.

My mum too. We won't tell them.

No, don't tell them.

If I would like to get some in Melbourne, do I order online? Is that the best way?

You can order online or just go online and put in your postcode and see your nearest Post shop. Melbourne's got a lot of Australia Post offices that have the product. They're $12 in store and online it's $14. Now, as far as our price point is concerned, in comparison to a lot of the other salts out there, we are under all those other flavoured or gourmet salts that don't have that hundred per cent give back. They're sitting around that between that $12 and $15 mark. We've come in at the place that we wanted to come in that we can still have enough profit to give back and to make it affordable for people.

Amazing. I see there's one just literally down the road from me in Port Melbourne on Bay Street, so I know what I'm doing after this phone conversation.

Oh, that's fantastic, Jo. The other thing with these as well is that Soult, was the start of the movement because, online as well, we are going to make a difference in someone's life. It's as simple as that. That's the reason why we are here. What my family has been through, we have created this legacy for our families, but also for other people, other families who have lost loved ones. And this isn't such a rare event anymore. There's a lot of people taking their lives daily. We are up to around about that nine mark in Australia every day.

This the time to really look at ways that we can change that. Soult was created because it was about sitting down and sharing. Sometimes people share laughter, share tears, share pain, share anything over food. Soult was created so we could get people to share, to open up and talk. The mantra we live by is just please sit down and enjoy a meal with someone throughout the week, whether it be a family, friends, and actually talk, share, share feelings, get things out there. The more that we can do that, the more that people can open up and start saying it, and through having, having food that that can help make this an easier transaction.

Incredible, Adam, you're doing such a great job, and you're so outward looking when you've got a lot of things going on for yourself as well. Thank you so much for being so open and for sharing so much with me as well.

I have to lead by example. I'll share with you one more thing. I've done two Mental Health First Aid courses now, and, and I'm going to be doing the Lifeline Assist. I was booked in to do that just as I got diagnosed. But all of those will come. I wish I had those tools that I have now on the 15th of July, 2018. So don't dismiss those tools. They actually can help make a difference. But I did the best that I could do at the time and I'm at peace with all of that. I did carry that for a little while. I'm at peace now, so to say, anyone thinking about this, I'm going to start doing some really nice table and share days as well for people and for businesses around Australia. They're the important ones to look out for and go to.

Considering at the moment one in five people in workplaces are affected with mental health, three out of five in between Year 10 and 12 are affected with mental health at school. In indigenous communities three out of five are affected by mental health. It's a big thing. That's in Australia so thank you Jo, for taking the time and having me on your podcast.

It was an absolute pleasure and honour. It has been really great to talk to you.

Soult, Salt with soul