Braving the bracing heat and fighting heinous thorns, Mark Andrew and partner Vickie Shina spent the lead up to Christmas hard at work gathering their
unique crop of native limes.
The former chef and trained nurse have unintentionally become pioneers in Western Australia’s fledgling native foods industry, and after 16 years of learning by
trial and error their plans are coming to fruition. After being relocated to WA for work, Vicki was taken with the idea of having a farm as a ‘retirement’ plan. In 2000 she
and Mark bought 100 acres in Red Gully with the plan to grow Quandongs – but it was not to be.
“Of course SA grafted Quandongs don’t work here in WA,” laughs Mark, “and out of the 300 trees we planted only one is left. We wondered what we were going to
do.”
As a hotel-chef in Melbourne, Mark was experienced in using bushfoods in his recipes, and had used the native lime – a tiny tangy fruit which can be used just like
any other citrus. Mark and Vicky took a punt and began planting native lime trees, of which there are many varieties including Finger Lime, Blood Lime, Sunrise Lime and the Outback Lime.
Whilst the intense flavour, miniature size and edible thin skin of this citrus lends itself ideally to bobbing in an icy cocktail – the fruit also has remarkable health
qualities; the highest content of Vitamin C in any citrus in the world, ten times the concentration of calcium as a blueberry, as well as being rich in folate, antioxidents and luteins.
The unique health properties of native plants is a subject close to Vicky’s heart, “A lot of medicines we use today have side effects, whereas a lot of these plants we
have here in Australia don’t.” she says, “There’s a lot of bush medicines out there that scientists are just discovering – of course the aboriginal people have known
about them for years.”
“ It’s the ‘new’ superfood – the one that’s been around for thousands of years,” quips Mark.
Mark and Vicky now have approximately 4000 trees under cultivation, and have harvested of over 2000 kilos of desert limes this season. They have a short window
to complete the picking – a process made more complex by the 4 day shelf life of the fruit.
After picking the fruit is sorted and then frozen as soon as possible in an on-site freezer. It’s then transported to the their warehouse where it’s distributed directly to
chefs and restaurants. Mark uses a percentage to make his own marmalades and relishes which are marketed under the Marvick Farm label.
At the moment they sell their fruit and products at the Manning markets as well as Farmer Jack’s in Ocean Reef. This year, for the first time they’ve pre-sold all their fruit and they are predicting that higher demand is just around the corner.
Let’s hope one day soon these native superfoods will be a stable in our diet, and standard on our supermarket shelves.
