A couple of backyard vanilla vines has led a Far North Queensland family on a five-year labour of love to establish a commercial vanilla plantation in the rainforest.
Wild Vanilla products were launched in the retail market earlier this year, the culmination of years of work by Atherton Tablelands family - Lex Peters and his wife Debbie, their daughter Rebekah Freeman and her husband Daniel Freeman and their children Oliver, 15, Ava, 13 and Charlie, 11, and son Daniel Peters, who is based in Brisbane.
Lex and Rebekah started playing with vanilla vines in the backyard; Rebekah's interest in the spice triggered after visiting a plantation in Vanuatu.
Amazed at the difference between their vanilla and store bought products, the family embarked on a journey to produce high quality, organic vanilla - and stake claim to being one of the only commercial plantations in the rainforest, very much driven by the environment in which it's grown in.
The family has received positive feedback to the products which include vanilla beans, vanilla powder and two variations of vanilla extract, with stockists on the Atherton Tablelands and Brisbane. New product development is ongoing.
They've leveraged off support and advice from the likes of Malanda-based Quirky Cooking's Jo Whitton, who has exposed their products to her thousands of social media followers, and award-winning Cairns barista Oliver James, who owns several cafes in Cairns and helped with flavour profiling.
The journey from plantation to plate has been intense and hands on.
Professionals by day in the health, education and IT fields, the family grow around 1500 vanilla plants and cultivate, harvest, cure and produce the products.
The vanilla is grown on a trellis system.
It takes just over 12 months from plant to product.
One of the most critical stages of growing is flowering, which generally happens in October on the Atherton Tablelands where temperatures are a little warmer.
"Each flower opens at dawn once and closes at around midday," Mr Peters said.
"You have to fertilise every single flower with a toothpick or they die.
"There's around eight weeks of flowering.
"After fertilising each bean it takes around eight months until the bean is ripe."
The beans are cured - each vanilla grower has their own well guarded recipe - and then dried before the product making begins.
Having trialled and tested various processing treatments, the family holds true to its quest for quality, paying close attention to various elements including humidity, temperature, airflow and hygiene.
"Our focus is on quality," Mrs Freeman said.
"We found that even a variance of a few minutes or a couple of temperature changes can impact the flavour profile.
"Our main goal is to make sure our product is high quality, consistently."
With most of the world's vanilla production based in low labour cost countries, the family is embracing, where possible, efficiencies like the trellis planting system, the row structure and potentially steps in processing to reduce the labour component.
Mr Peters believes there is scope to better position Australia vanilla and educate the consumer to the "special quality" of the product.
Now launched successfully in the retail market, the family is eyeing off the wholesale food market - dairy products and distilleries as an example - where opportunities abound to supply consistently high quality vanilla.
"Our vision is to be the primary producer and supplier of high quality organic Australian vanilla."
