It was with an eye to escape the rat race of city living that saw Fiona George and Matt Allen headed to far north Queensland in 2004 where their business Broken Nose Vanilla has since gone from strength to strength.
The pair who recently made GoodFood.com.au “Australia's top 30 producers 2015” list said the decision to move north came when they were living in Auckland.
“We wanted to return to Australia but were looking for an alternative to going back to the city,” Fiona said.
“We were part of the sea change/tree change generation, so I guess we were looking for a more relaxed lifestyle and to reduce our mortgage burden,” she said.
After extensive consultation and research the couple took the plunge and purchased a five hectare property in Woopen Creek, Mirriwinni, about one hour south of Cairns along the Bruce Highway.
“We overlook the Russell River valley under the shadow of Mt Bartle Frere and a smaller peak called Broken Nose, so we named our place Broken Nose Vanilla.”
With Fiona’s background in horticulture and landscape design/construction they decided based on the area’s climatic conditions they’d try their hands at growing a vanilla crop.
Fiona said vanilla appealed for several reasons, chief among them being that they enjoy using it in preparing their own meals.
“It’s a high value, niche crop that can be stored indefinitely as it’s non-perishable,” she said.
“Also, growing vanilla doesn’t require a lot prior knowledge or specific skills; it’s intensive horticulture, so it doesn’t require a large amount of land (one hectare of their land is used) and it doesn’t require a lot of capital to get started.
“We manage the property holistically, allowing the rainforest to regenerate on the hillslopes and we maintain groves of beneficial trees we harvest for leaves (mulch) and timber supports for the vanilla vines.”
She said the Wet Tropics of northern Australia provide perfect growing conditions for vanilla which flourishes in hot humid summers and warm but drier winters.
“A dry, cool winter (around 12-15 degrees at night) is required to stimulate flowering which usually takes between two or three years.”
She said vanilla is grown best from cuttings, around one metre long, planted straight into an open mulch (not soil) and with some kind of support.
“It’s a very vigorous climber so we train the vanilla over a single trellis wire to control it.”
She said the flowers require a special pollinator (like most orchids) that isn’t available in Australia, which means they have to hand pollinate.
“When the flowers open during the cooler months (August-November) they must be pollinated before about midday when the heat of the day makes them start to close.”
Fiona and Matt have to pollinate every day during the season as each flower only lasts for one day and then dies.
If the pollination is successful, the flower stays on the stem and the stem swells to become the green vanilla pod.
Around nine months later when the tip of the pod starts to go yellow, they harvest the pods individually to get the best quality result.
The next stage is the curing process which involves a brief heat treatment to stimulate the enzymes that turn the vanilla pod sugars into vanillin and other flavours.
Pods are put in the clear winter sun each day to heat up, then placed in an insulated box overnight with constant heat to sweat.
They turn from green to brown in the first couple of days. This sweating and heating process continues for around two weeks every day.
After this they go into the shed to “rest” for a few months where they are stored in airtight containers to further develop flavour.
“We are looking to manage the moisture content and the sugar content so that we end up with a stable, fermented vanilla pod that won’t go mouldy or dry out.”
Fiona said they use almost all their beans, whatever the grade, for their Broken Nose Vanilla gourmet range of products which includes: vanilla-infused honey; vanilla tea and vanilla caramelised balsamic vinegar.
“We try to source our additional ingredients locally, or at least from within Queensland.
“We get tea and coffee from the Atherton Tablelands, rainforest honey locally and vinegars from the Granite Belt – and we make our own extract, syrup and paste.”
Fiona said they do sell beans to a select few restaurants who appreciate and promote local produce including Peppers at Palm Cove and Ochre in Cairns.
“We have recently been approached by Peters Ice Cream to supply them but we just don’t have the production at present and can’t meet demand with the products we make.”
She said future plans for the flourishing business will include planting more vanilla vines so that they can supply bulk beans to discerning chefs around Australia, to continue to expand the Broken Nose Vanilla brand into Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia next year.