Adrian and Amanda Schultz, from Wamuran, say strawberries are such a perishable fruit, and every time it rains they have so much good quality fruit that has to be thrown out as it has slight damage, and no shelf life to send into supermarkets.
"Each year friends would give us trailers to fill and would say I can’t believe you are throwing this out," Amanda said. "So as a Naturopath and passionate about health and strawberries I thought we might be able to make a natural flavour and colouring for people to use. So LuvaBerry Strawberry powder and snacks began its trial in October 2017 post-harvest. So we now grow our strawberries, they go to freeze dry processing off the farm and we get them back in powder and snacks. From there we package them on the farm and have created a WOW product; war on waste."
The family, that includes Adrian’s parents Bob and Joy, grow about 200,000 strawberry plants which includes the Rubygem and American varieties Festival and Splendour across 8.5 acres. Their fresh strawberry season usually runs from May to October, however freeze dried products have a long shelf life and can be purchased all year round.
"The strawberry industry has reached a problem of during the harvest and oversupply for a variety of reasons," she said. "As a result we are now often faced with having to throw out fruit either too small or ugly. The window of 'seconds market' has declined. So the powder enables us to provide an alternative, with all the flavour and colour plus the added health benefits of fresh strawberries."
Ms Schultz says the powder and the snacks are particularly popular with hikers and adventure sports people.
"You know how when you go travelling, camping or hiking it’s difficult to take perishable fresh fruit," she said. "Well our tasty powder and snacks provide an alternative. One 25g tablespoon of powder equals 250g fresh punnet."
It is still early days for the product, and with positive results so far from the trials, the growers are gathering information on how far the product can reach.
"We are really excited about powder and snacks, the initial trial has proven to be very popular," Ms Schultz said. "Most of the sales have been done through Facebook page and our war against waste Facebook group. We have just been accepted into the Sunshine Coasts Innovation Grow Coastal program, which will take this product from trial to retails shelves. We have made initial enquiries with Austrade to know Australian fruit snacks has great potential but at this stage we are working on our packaging and labelling."
The Schultz's also produce fingerlimes, with approximately 1000 trees on their property, which is also growing each year.
"There is a huge demand and awareness for fingerlimes but we are still at early stages of this plan. Our website will be operational in time for our biggest harvest ever in 2018," Ms Schultz said.
For more information:
Amanda Schultz
Phone: +61 417741692
www.facebook.com/LuvaBerry