A GAYNDAH couple want to market their citrus beyond its seasonal lifespan by creating their own extra virgin olive oil, cordial and preserve products.
Matthew and Rachael Benham are slowly taking over managerial roles as part of the succession plan for 140 hectares of the 180 hectares of citrus orchards from Benyenda, owned by the Benham family.
Following the recent purchase of a neighbouring orchard, they currently have up to 75,000 trees of lemons, imperial mandarins, daisy mandarins, murcott mandarins, red and white grapefruit, and oranges.
After removing and replanting trees, some reaching 80 years old, production is expected to reach a capacity of up to 85,000 trees.
When Rachael, who grew up on a sheep and cattle property at Augathella, moved to Matthew’s citrus farm, her grandmother thought it was the perfect opportunity for her to perfect her preserve making skills with the fresh produce.
After some experimental mixtures, a few internet searches and phone calls, Rachael established her own recipe and even served up murcott marmalade, citrus jelly, lemon butter and lime cordial for the 160 guests at their wedding.
It was the taste testing that left everybody wanting more and led the couple to send the recipe and fruit to contract manufacturers, The Other Chef Fine Foods, in Port Macquarie who make the murcott marmalade and citrus jelly spreads in bulk.
“I sent them (The Other Chef Fine Foods) down some fruit as a sample and he rang me and went, the marmalade is good but this jelly, it’s liquid gold,” Rachael said.
“I use the murcott mandarins so they are full of juice, full of sugar, really sweet and have a fine skin so you don’t have big chunks of pip and rind in there and I use lemons with it, that combination is my little secret.”
Their products have proved a major hit at local markets around the Wide Bay Burnett with Rachael hoping to provide an orange infused extra virgin olive oil and cordial with their citrus, after trialling a similar item with customers.
She said unlike some farming industries, meeting consumer preferences could be difficult and lengthy
“You plant a tree and it’s a good four years before you get production out of it so we are forward guessing and trying to keep on top of what the customer wants,” she said.
“In four years things can change. If it doesn’t kick off you have put in a lot of work, a lot of money goes in to keeping ahead of the game and what everyone wants.”
With a large portion of their citrus going to the export market, she said the preserves were something different to offer to customers.
“For us our season is five to six months, the rest of the year I’m like, well you can eat jam off of the fruit,” she said.
“It’s a bit of a fun project and just something else you can do with it. We all have to diversify to keep on top of the game and you have to be flexible with everything.”
On farm, soil health has been a beneficial adoption for the family for 20 years and seen them reduce their NPK inputs by 10-20 per cent.
Matthew said recently they had been working at creating a compost using the leftover fruit and wood chip as another feature of their nutrition plan.
“Always buffering your NPK applications with carbon and soil biology inputs to increase nutrient uptake efficiency ” he said.
“We are mixing it up and putting it into a liquid form and then working on soil amendments as well.
“We haven’t done a old school conventional fertiliser program in about 20 years so you are not leaching and wasting what you are putting on.”