Page 19 - Food & Drink Business Nov-Dec 2019

BROUGHT TO YOU BY
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.
UNPEELING INVENTIONS
When Rob inadvertently drove over a pile of unsalable bananas, the powder that rose up caught his curiosity.
After much R&D, the mild coeliac sufferer began selling a couple of kilograms of gluten- free banana flour a week through the family’s café. Within a month they were receiving phone orders and couldn’t keep up.
Ever the innovator, Rob designed machinery to peel the green bananas, removing the arduous, way-too-time- consuming task of manual peeling. In 2010, he was awarded Young Farmer of the Year for this and another invention, the Banana Blankey, a fully recyclable banana packaging solution for transport.
With their fledging business taking off, the couple, who have two young children, stopped growing their own bananas, leased out the farm and poured their energy into Natural Evolution. It now has nine employees on-site at Walkamin in the Queensland Tablelands, with a handful of sales representatives around the world.
Krista Watkins says, “Because we leased out the farm, we now buy in green bananas from local farmers, along with sweet potatoes, which we also make into a gluten-free flour.”
Everything is handled in-house, including product development, and research and evaluation of excess produce. “We do this not only for ourselves, but for other companies too.”
Such is the demand for the the
Functional food innovators and market disruptors: Rob and Krista Watkins
couple’s analytical skills, they recently set up a new business, Evolution Industries, which Krista describes as “the mother” of Natural Evolution.
“Aswedoalotofourwork in-house, it really is the ‘power of the people’ we are most grateful for – that small group who followed us from the beginning, who told their friends and helped grow us as a business and as people.
“Likewise, we’re thankful for media interest in what we do; it’s just such a blessed opportunity for us to talk about what we love doing.”
Along with the recognition for Rob’s achievements, Krista’s have also been acknowledged on a state and national level.
A member of the Queensland Justice of The Peace Association, she is EY’s Disruption Entrepreneur of the
“ We love working with our farmers and giving them opportunity, and I know that the whole base of people out there championing us is going to grow...”
“We love working with our farmers and giving them opportunity, and I know that the whole base of people out there championing us is going to grow and we are just so thankful for that.
Year 2019, along with Northern Region Australia 2018 AgriFutures Rural Woman of the Year National Award Winner, and AgriFutures Queensland Rural Woman of the Year 2018.
cocdoecdoedceodcehcehccekhcekcchkecakcpatcuparteupcrtaeupcretaucrreaecr2ea4rc2xea472rxe47x274x7
1300 263 464
www.matthews.com.au
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | November-December 2019 | Food&Drink business | 19
RISING STAR
✷