Bushfood industry history
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The modern Australian native food industry, also called the bushfood industry had its initial beginnings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when regional enthusiasts and researchers started to target local native species for cropping.
In the late 1970s, horticulturist, Peter Hardwick, began investigating subtropical native plants suitable for cropping, selecting species like riberry, Davidsonia, and later leaf-spices, like lemon myrtle, Aniseed myrtle, and Dorrigo Pepper. In the 1980s, Hardwick worked in the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, where he met essential oils researcher, Dr Ian Southwell. Southwell played a significant role in providing the initial essential oil profiles of many of the most popular native spices.
In the mid-1980s, while working as a researcher analysing Aboriginal native foods with the Human Nutrition Unit, Sydney University, Vic Cherikoff started-up a wholesale distribution company marketing authentic Australian ingredients. Cherikoff played a vital role in linking-up the Aboriginal and regional bushfood knowledge with the restaurant and food processing industry. Cherikoff also contributed to Jennifer Isaacs'book, Bush Food and authored The Bushfood Handbook and Uniquely Australian, A wildfood cookbook which publicly defined the emerging industry.
In the mid-1980s several Australian theme restaurants opened-up in Sydney. This included Rowntrees The Australian Restaurant, run by Chef Jean-Paul Bruneteau and Jenny Dowling. In 1996, Bruneteau, Dowling and Cherikoff opened a second restaurant, Riberries – Taste Australia. Edna’s Table restaurant also opened-up and was run by brother and sister team, Chef Raymond Kersh and Jennice Kersh. The Red Ochre Grill in Adelaide opened-up in the early 1990s, with Andrew Fielke (Cherikoff's South Australian distributor) as its chef. Fielke also co-founded a production company, Australian Native Produce Industries (ANPI). While Cherikoff's company supplied all of these restaurants from their inception, together, they initiated the development of an Australian cuisine based on authentic Australian ingredients.
Value-added production emerged in the late 1980s with products marketed via mianstream retailers. Ian and Juleigh Robbins who were Cherikoff's Victorian distributors, established a line of processed sauces, jams and dried spice products through Robin's Foods Pty Ltd. Boutique value-added production - such as jams, sauces and beverages – has become increasingly significant in the regional development of native foods.
Small-scale trial commercial production of native food plants started to occur in the late 1980s. In 1994 the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Greening Australia co-sponsored a conference on growing bushfoods. The 2000 Olympic Games, in Sydney, were targeted by the developing industry as an event for promoting native foods.
Various regionally based industry associations were formed to represent growers in a national process. Government agencies have become increasingly involved with new native crop development. CSIRO researcher, Dr Stephen Sykes, developed a range of native Citrus hybrids which became available through ANPI.
Since 2000 the industry has continued to consolidate, with a growing overseas market for produce and greater refinement in production methods to supply the demand. Some new products have been introduced, including Finger Lime, mintbush and forestberry herb. However, while the rate of introduction of new native food-plant species has slowed since the early period of the industries conception in the 1980s, the marketing of herb and spice blends, fruit mixtures and functional extracts has grown, potentially leading the industry into new and larger market segments.
[edit] External links
- CSIRO, industry profile [1]
[edit] References
- Bruneteau, Jean-Paul, Tukka, Real Australian Food, ISBN 0-207-18966-8.
- Cherikoff, Vic, The Bushfood Handbook, ISBN 0-7316-6904-5.
- Cherikoff, Vic and Christie, Benjamin, The Dining Downunder Cookbook, ISBN 0-9752021-0-3.
- Kersh, Jennice and Raymond, Edna's Table, ISBN 0-7336-0539-7.
