Over the last little while we’ve been thinking about what we can do with our beautiful but “ugly fruit”. That is, Kiwano that doesn’t meet the grade for a number of reasons – shape, colour, bruises, marks, or spots.
It’s been on our mind more than ever this season because of the impact of an unseasonably humid and stormy mid-summer period. A proportion of the fruit, which was developing beautifully, developed water spots. They were still perfectly good to eat. For us, it was pretty sad to see those beautiful fruit not reach their potential. Especially for Mark (our field manager) and Alan – nurtured from seed to the packing tray, those Kiwano really are their babies!
One of the many ways we try to limit our impact on the earth, and our waste, is by only growing what we know we can sell. And, as I talked about in an earlier blog, Alan is fastidious when it comes to seed selection. Over the decades, he’s put dedicated effort into making each Kiwano crop better than the last. But even with sustainable farming methods, there’s always going to be a level of fruit attrition you can’t avoid.
It’s so exciting to see supermarket chains expand on their ranges of ugly fruit (or a better term for it is “wonky” produce) – Morrisons most recently added chillis to its range of 33 misshapen varieties.
At the moment, our excess goes to some local pigs. But we’d love to be able to reduce waste and make use of our Kiwano that tastes just as beautiful, but doesn’t have the good looks of their export-grade friends.
So right now we are searching for a New Zealand-based company who can help us extract the juice and pulp from these not-so-beautiful Kiwano beauties next season. We’re really open to ideas about how it might work – it could be a “fruitful” collaboration with a company that uses fruit products, a partnership, a contract…
If you know of anyone who might be interested in working with a super healthy, completely delicious and naturally grown ugly fruit, let us know!
In the meantime, we’ll be searching and exploring too – just don’t tell the pigs : )
Freeze-dried flavour – you need to try this!
Earlier this season, we got to experience one exciting possibility for ugly fruit thanks to New Zealand company Fresh As, who do a stunning range of premium freeze-dried ingredients for consumer and food service.
They created a sample of Kiwano powder for us, which we absolutely loved. It distilled and concentrated the unique flavour of Kiwano into a pure, all-natural product, minus the texture and water content which could disrupt some recipes. Products like this extend the possibilities of Kiwano even further. Desserts are just one idea – how about Kiwano and White Chocolate cheesecakes? I highly recommend you check out this company and their amazing range of intensely flavoured and beautiful natural products.
