Burleigh Heads Baker Turns Sourdough Side Hustle Into a Six-Figure Export Business

Three years ago, Mia Thorne was baking sourdough loaves out of a rented commercial kitchen on Connor Street, Burleigh Heads, selling to a handful of farmers market regulars and a couple of local cafés. Today, her company Coastal Grain Co. is moving product into Singapore and Malaysia, has a retail presence in Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, and turned over more than $800,000 in the 2024-25 financial year, according to the company's own figures shared with The Daily Gold Coast.

The timing matters. Australia's property market is cooling, household discretionary spending is under real pressure, and energy costs are biting small manufacturers across the country. Thorne built her export pipeline anyway, betting that demand for premium, traceable Australian grain products in Southeast Asian markets would outlast the domestic squeeze. So far, the bet is paying off.

From Burleigh Markets to Pacific Fair

Coastal Grain Co. started as a side project after Thorne left a marketing role with a Surfers Paradise hospitality group in early 2023. She spent the first six months selling at the Burleigh Heads Farmers Market every Saturday morning, refining three core products, a heritage wheat sourdough, a rye-and-spelt blend, and a sprouted grain cracker she now calls the company's biggest earner. The cracker line alone accounts for roughly 40 percent of current revenue, she said.

The Pacific Fair retail deal came through in October 2024, giving Coastal Grain Co. a permanent fixture in the centre's artisan food precinct rather than a pop-up slot. That kind of permanent tenancy is harder to land than it sounds, Pacific Fair, anchored by David Jones and managed by Vicinity Centres, typically reserves its specialty food spaces for established brands. For a three-year-old micro-manufacturer from Burleigh Heads to secure a fixed lease there is genuinely unusual.

Thorne also credits the Gold Coast Economic Development Corporation's Export Pathways program, which she joined in mid-2024, with opening the Singapore connection. The program pairs small Queensland manufacturers with in-market trade advisors and covers up to 50 percent of initial export compliance costs for eligible businesses. Without that cost offset, she said, the compliance paperwork for food imports into Singapore would have pushed the project back by at least a year.

Why the Numbers Stack Up Now

Queensland's food and agribusiness exports to Southeast Asia grew in value over the past two years, driven partly by stronger interest in provenance-labelled products following supply chain disruptions during the early 2020s. Premium grain and baked goods sit in a niche that's still underpopulated by Australian small producers, which is part of why Thorne's margins on the export side run higher than her domestic retail margins.

Her Burleigh Heads production facility, now a leased space on Kortum Drive rather than the original shared kitchen, runs Tuesday through Saturday with four full-time staff and two casual workers. Rent for commercial food production space in that suburb is running at roughly $28 to $35 per square metre per month as of mid-2026, according to leasing agents active in the southern Gold Coast corridor. Thorne won't disclose her specific rate but confirmed it is inside that range.

She sources a portion of her wheat from a single family farm in the Darling Downs, a supply relationship she started in 2023 and formalised with a 12-month volume agreement last year. That kind of direct sourcing arrangement gives her a story to tell in export markets, provenance is the marketing lever that justifies the price premium in Singapore specialty grocers, where her crackers retail at the equivalent of around AU$14 per 150-gram pack.

For other Gold Coast food entrepreneurs watching this model, the practical takeaway is fairly specific: the Export Pathways program has an application round closing in September 2026, and the Economic Development Corporation runs monthly information sessions at its Southport offices on Nerang Street. The Pacific Fair artisan food precinct has at least one additional tenancy coming available later this year, according to centre management communications reviewed by this masthead. Neither opportunity will wait around.

This article is general information only and is not personal financial or investment advice. Consider your own circumstances and seek licensed professional advice before making financial decisions.