A little idea from a little region in the Queensland Tablelands has evolved into a big global opportunity in the functional foods market. Samantha Schelling writes.
Ten years ago, green banana powder didn’t exist. Today, it is not only “a thing”, it is a product with worldwide opportunity.
The fact one of the top five restaurants in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district uses it is testimony to its success.
While the initial find that led to banana flour was serendipitous, the efforts and tenacity of Krista and Rob Watkins are anything but.
For two generations, Rob and his family numbered among Australia’s largest banana growers. But there was a frustration: wastage of produce not fitting specific supermarket guidelines. Nationally, this amounts to some 500 tonnes weekly, which is why the Watkins family’s development has such huge potential.
Krista Watkins explains that while the waste bananas “were too big, too straight or too bendy”, there was nothing wrong with their nutritional value. Meanwhile, mobs of wallabies and local cattle, would move “through fences” to eat the piles of “waste”.
Compounding the frustration for the Watkins family was that their speciality crop – Lady Fingers – needs up to 30 per cent more labour to grow than Cavendish bananas, but has half the yield (just under 50 tonnes a hectare) due to plant height.
All of this meant that across the Watkins family’s 202 hectares that were planted to bananas, there were a lot of wasted resources.
