Money might not grow on trees, but it certainly can appear under them, reports Ed Charles
October 27, 2006
FIRST we started exporting wine to France. Now Australia could be doing the same with that most exotic of ingredients, the truffle.
Prized by top chefs, the truffle is the aromatic fruit of an underground fungus — the most popular being the Tuber melanosporum, or black Perigord truffle. It sells for $1500 to $3000 a kilo, depending on quality, and is a dream product where demand outstrips supply.
Figures are flaky, but worldwide between 50 and 100 tonnes of truffles are produced, mainly in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In a bad year, production can fall to less than 10 tonnes.
Now the Australian industry is coming of age and exporting to the world. This year at Hazel Hill Farm in Western Australia, more than 100kg of the precious fungi was harvested from a 21ha plantation of 13,000 hazel and oak trees. Again, figures are flaky, but truffle growth in Australia appears to be exponential: in 2004 Hazel Hill yielded 4kg and in 2005 26kg.
The Wine & Truffle Co is based near Manjimup in Western Australia. Its truffle expert, Dr Nicholas Malajczuk, says: “Yields are quite variable. It’s related to climate, the soil conditions and so forth. That’s one of the things we’ve been working on.”
In 1999, the first Australian truffle was found on the property of Tasmanian truffle farmer Tim Terry, five years after he planted his first trees. On the mainland, the first truffle was found at the Wine & Truffle Co’s Hazel Hill farm in 2003.
Traditionally truffles are sniffed out by female pigs because the truffle smell mimics a sexy male pig pheromone. But now dogs, which are easily trained and won’t eat the truffles, are used.
Terry and Malajczuk are working on how to increase truffle yields through tree inoculation techniques, climate and soil chemistry. Terry reckons the best bet is the oak tree, which can produce the fungus within four years. Malajczuk reckons hazel, which yields in five years, grows the biggest truffles — in one case a 1kg monster.
He says Australia’s main advantage over Europe is that the fungus is a monoculture here. In Europe, it has to compete with other less-desirable but sometimes more voracious fungi. As well, European truffles are vulnerable to insect larvae. None of these exists in Australia. Malajczuk has also developed what he calls a “boost juice” to help increase yields.
The supply-side advantage that Australian truffle farmers have is that they produce out of season. In Europe, Perigord truffles are harvested from December to February. In Australia they are available from June to early September.
Malajczuk first exported truffles in 2005, with a dinner at the Paris Ritz using his products. Now he is getting inquiries from Bangkok, Singapore and Tokyo.
Tasmanian Truffle Enterprises’ Terry, who sent his first export crop to Europe this year, plans to concentrate on export. “There are a lot of other growers in Australia that will eventually be able to supply the Australian market themselves,” he says. Currently there are about 130 growers in Australia.
There are three aspects to Terry’s truffle business. The first is the inoculation of oak and hazel trees with the fungus spores. These are either planted or sold on to other plantation owners.
The second aspect is the managing of the plantations and actually harvesting the truffles.
The final element is raising the cash to fund the projects through plantation-style tax-effective investment schemes where investors pay annual management fees. Although investors in Terry’s project received first dividends two years ahead of schedule, they still don’t cover annual management fees.
Tasmanian Truffle Enterprises manages 90ha of truffle plantation, 50ha under a managed investment scheme, and is about to plant another 70ha.
Terry says: “We want enough volume of truffles to give continuity of supply to the market.”
Terry learnt about truffles in France. What staggered him was the lack of science in what is essentially a peasant business. In 1999, armed with a $250,000 government grant, Terry was able to refine the seeding of oak and hazel trees for truffle production. Malajczuk has received a $750,000 grant for similar work.
Terry says: “There’s still a lot of myth and mythology. From my point of view it’s another crop.”
Now Terry is turning his attention to the highest prize of them all — the white truffle from Italy’s Piedmont which sells for more than $4000/kg. “We haven’t grown any yet, but that’s the challenge, isn’t it?”