When you think about the traditional post-career pathway for the modern footballer, your mind understandably goes in a certain direction. 

Buy some real estate, or a share in a pub, go into coaching, or score a gig in the media. 

But not for former Bulldog (and Saint and Kangaroo), Farren Ray. 

After hanging up the boots in 2016 after 209 League games, Ray’s calling, thanks to the help of his partner Bianca, came in the form of the humble cauliflower. 

“It’s obviously a bit random for an ex footballer to launch a cauliflower business,” Ray told Bob Murphy and Marcus Bontempelli on this week’s episode of the Barkly Street podcast. 

“Bianca’s been a type one diabetic since she was six years of age.  She substituted a lot of unhealthy foods for healthy alternatives. 

“In about 2016 she had these cauliflower ideas, and from that we started working on developing some products.

“She’s done a really job.  I’m definitely not the brains behind the recipes!” 

Curiously Cauli was created, with Bianca handling the creation of the recipes for products including crackers and dips, and Farren looking after distribution, working with retailers in Melbourne and Sydney. 

And business could be set to boom after some creative ideas from Ray’s former locker neighbour at VU Whitten Oval. 

“I think you and Bianca should start referring to yourselves as the king and queen of cauliflower.  That’s just easy.  That’s on the business cards,” Murphy suggested. 

“And you’re going to get a border collie pup, and you’re going to take the border collie to all of your sales meetings, and the dog’s name will be ‘border collie-flower’. 

“If you had a sales order, you tie it into the collar of border collie-flower.  How can you say no to that?”