DIVERSIFICATION is important when demand for aesthetically pleasing fruit and vegetables has led to mass wastage.
For some growers, frustration has led to ingenuity as they find new ways to turn imperfect fruit into viable products.
Yanalla Farms turn ‘second-grade’ custard apples into Custard Dust.
Robert and Karen Martin grow custard apples on their Glass House Mountain farm.
“We entered a Coco-Cola Sweet Story Challenge to find a natural, low calorie or no calorie alternative to sugar,” Karen said.
“I approached a local company that specialised in freeze drying and it was surprisingly easy to freeze dry the pulp from our custard apples.
“All we had to do was freeze it and Custard Dust was born.”
That was seven years ago, their entry was one of six winners worldwide.
The Martins are finding other ways to manage imperfect fruit.
“With our seconds fruit, or fruit that is deemed no good at all and usually thrown away, we ‘re collaborating with a university in Sydney on a fruit and vegetable fermentation project,” she said.
“It is a six year long project aimed at utilising waste fruit.
“We send [the project researchers] fruit we can’t sell, that’s fruit that is damaged, such as where the stem has been pulled out when it’s been kicked or there are pest marks on it.
“Rather than throwing it away, we send it to Sydney where there are a swathe of scientists testing fruit with yeasts and that sort of thing.”
Karen said food scientists were finding ways to turn the fruit into vinegars and alcoholic products.
The skin, seed, leaves and branches are also used in the project – not just the pulp.
“We have been doing that for a couple of years now and it’s still in the development stage,” she said.
“The plan is we’d have an ICB [intermediate bulk container] on farm and put the waste fruit into that.
“A truck would collect it when it’s full and take it to a manufacturer who’d turn it into something useful.
“[Food scientists] are developing a recipe for yeast that would be put into containers once we’ve extracted the pulp out of our fruit,” she said.
“Then the fruit goes through its fermentation process, however long that takes, before being picked up and delivered to the manufacturer.”
