Rockin’ lobster, ham and cherry on top

Sales of the Berkshire hams are up almost 40 per cent this December and customers are more interested than ever in supporting local producers.

Charlotte Viney with premium Aussie ham for the butchers at the Boatshed Market in Perth. Picture: Colin Murty

Inside the former boat shed where the America’s Cup winner Australia II was built, butchers are practising their own craftsmanship.

The Boat Shed Market butcher shop in the seaside Perth suburb of Cottesloe uses a secret blend of woodchips to make Christmas hams from black pigs raised by ­farmer Linton Batt at Beverley, 130km east of Perth.

Sales of the Berkshire hams are up almost 40 per cent this December — from around 420 to 650 so far — and shop assistants, including 20-year-old Charlotte Viney, find customers are more interested than ever in supporting local producers.

Grocers, including big supermarkets, are responding to a new hunger for Australian produce this Christmas.

The Boat Shed Market’s Wayne Midson says 2020 is the busiest Christmas since he became a co-owner of the butchery 16 years ago. In the heart of Perth’s golden triangle of real estate, the converted shed is the local grocer to some of Perth’s wealthiest.

“I think the biggest difference is that a lot of people around here have a holiday house overseas and they are staying at home this year,” he said.

“We have definitely noticed a huge increase.”

Woolworths merchandise manager Roger Steele said there had been “double-digit growth” nationwide in sales of a range of Australian seafood, including salmon, barramundi, tiger prawns and oysters. China’s decision to shun WA rock lobsters has been a Christmas gift to Australians. Rock lobsters destined for export before trade tensions ratcheted up were suddenly $20 each at Coles and Woolworths. The rush forced the supermarkets to impose a limit of four per person.

John Maguire with baskets of his plump cherries. Picture: Nikki Short

In Sydney, amid a sea of orange shells and silver scales, fishmonger Con Doukas watched on Thursday as his crew in blue aprons bagged up piles of prawns and mussels for afternoon customers.

Mr Doukas, owner of Musumeci at Sydney Fish Market, said Christmas shoppers were paying about $66 for a kilo of western rock lobsters and $80 for eastern rock lobsters, down from $80 and $115kg respectively.

He said people had bought more Australian seafood, and earlier, this Christmas.

In regional NSW, many orchards have burst back from last year’s dry to deliver an exquisite crop of Christmas cherries.

The dark, long-stemmed Kordia variety and plump Lapins were mostly off the trees before late rain began to split the fruit in Orange last week. Good cherries from Adelaide have been in shops around Australia for weeks, and on Saturday picking began at orchards bordering jarrah forest near Donnybrook south of Perth.

The abundance of big, sweet cherries from across southern Australia is a logistic triumph by growers who only months ago worried they would not get their crops to market without fast-picking backpackers from overseas.

Orchardist John Reynolds, from Orange, turned to school leavers to help him this year.

Without wishing to be rude, he said the pickers this year were generally not as speedy. Before the pandemic shut Australia off to international backpackers, Mr Reynolds said growers had a workforce that was usually highly motivated to earn as much as possible as quickly as possible to fund more adventures.

Mr Reynolds said the going rate for pickers in the region this year was $1.20 per kilogram, though he paid $1.80kg to make it more attractive.

“Even then, I did have an 18-year-old tell me I needed to pay him more,” Mr Reynolds said. “He had been there for three hours and he had only earned $36.”

Mr Reynolds said bigger growers in the region simply hired more pickers to get the fruit off the trees at the right time.

The results are spectacular, according to Grose Vale farmer John Maguire, who sells at his farmgate store Enniskillen Orchard. In two decades of selling cherries, he said “there has been none better than this year”.

Additional reporting: Paige Taylor