Nothing could have possibly prepared Anthony and Lee-Anne Yewers for the massive influx of customers chasing their locally grown berries after the Australia-wide recall of certain imported frozen berries due to suspected Hepatitis A contamination.
Even though they were expecting to increase business after launching a new purpose-built farm-gate shop and cafe at Berry Sweet, their berry farm and popular pit-stop just out of Bullsbrook, they have been overwhelmed by the demand of the past few weeks. Lee-Anne is barely able to catch her breath between packaging and freezing as many berries as she can get her hands on, fielding phone calls and serving the long queue of customers waiting patiently in line at the freshly-minted shop.
“We’re absolutely gob-smacked at what’s happened – it’s crazy because throughout the season we have to throw so much away, particularly strawberries. The cows eat them!” “We’ve got no sale for them, we don’t have a processing line, and you can only sell so many fresh. We don’t have the facilities to freeze
a lot, but it looks like we’ll have to now!” she said. I suspect she has already started planning the next step to expand this local business she and her husband have built from scratch over the past eight years.
The demand for their product has always been high and when their children Kyle, 14 and Sienna, 11 reached more self-sufficient ages they finally agreed to enter a joint venture with Coles. Two years ago they established a farm in Pemberton where the cooler climate enables them to produce fruit all
year round. The berries are all grown under contract, and their first grade strawberries go straight from the farm to Coles Distribution Centre where they are distributed statewide as a premium product. Their first ever harvest of blackberries this February are being picked and packed alongside the raspberries for Driscolls who market the end product.
The Yewers own and sell the ‘seconds’ fruit at their farm gate – perfectly palatable and deliciously fresh berries that don’t meet appearance or size standards of the big supermarkets, or have been broken in the picking process. Whilst there has always been an interest in frozen raspberries they have never before seen demand for frozen strawberries. “My regular customers were happy with a 5 kilo box of seconds
strawberries for jam or sauce, but now I’m getting a lot of people from Perth demanding frozen, hulled fruit, ready to go,” says a still surprised Lee-Anne. “People are calling me from as far away as Paraburdoo, desperate to get their hands on our frozen berries.” Was she as shocked as the rest of us
to discover that most frozen berries in Australian supermarkets are grown overseas?
Of course not. “The berry growing industry is very small here. In WA we’re basically it, so I’ve always known they were imported.” Along with plans to build a display tunnel of growing strawberries for cafe customers to enjoy, Lee-Anne is busy nutting out how she can store more frozen fruit, and it’s obvious this family business is a continuously growing success story.
