Utilising Australian produce to create puree food solutions

Consumers are no longer just interested in the end product, they are interested in where their food comes from.

With the growing demand for perfection across the food industry, many food companies over the years have had no choice but to dump product that isn't deemed good enough by the retailers or attempt where possible to persuade the consumer to purchase so-called ‘ugly fruit’.

It may be ugly or slightly damaged but it still tastes the same, here at AustChilli we developed a process many years ago to utilise the majority of the chilli crop for fresh produce and manufacture the leftover ‘waste’ into puree food solutions to create ingredients which we now sell around the world.

The battle against food waste isn’t new news.

However, realising that the consumer wants to understand this process is now vital in the process. 

Globally each year, over one-third of all food that is grown is lost or wasted. This not only means an economic loss, but also means that all of the natural resources used for growing, processing, packing and transporting were wasted, not to mention the marketing that is put behind products. What if we were to turn this around and educate the consumer to 100% utilisation of the crop and find a way to manage this across multiple platforms?

Our farms, our systems

Grown on our family-owned Bundaberg farms, we can offer a true farm-to-plate vertically integrated system. This system has enabled us to become the largest fresh chilli producer in Australia with daily supply into all markets and retailers nationally. Although fresh chilli is in our DNA, we also grow and or manufacture chilli, vegetable and herb purees across multiple varieties. Many of our ingredients make up some of your favourite sauces and condiments that you see on your supermarket shelves or are a base ingredient used on your favourite burgers, wings and pizzas.

This unique system not only allows us to utilise the crop, but it also helps us in sustaining local jobs and the economy as well as creating futures for the farming industry.

For the consumer a great example of what do or how we do it is the Jalapeno chilli, which is supplied as follows:

• Fresh Jalapeno
  Premium full green jalapeno  supplied into your local supermarket
• Jalapeno Puree
  Shelf-stable aseptic puree which is supplied to food manufacturers to create sauces, dips and condiments
• Fresh Jalapeno for slicing/pickling
  We are currently working on an Australian range of sliced jalapeno
• HPP Jalapeno
  Creating an ultimate fresh jalapeno with an extended shelf life

Supporting farmers

Not only do we supply purees utilising our own chillies, but we support various farmers throughout Australia with an avenue for their oversupplied produce. We take their oversupply produce and turn it into one of over 60 puree lines from vegetables to herbs.

Understanding this process and supporting us to create more volume in these ingredients will inturn work backwards to support Australia’s crops from economic loss and help to make our farmers profitable.

“Join us to embrace the Australian paddock to plate experience”