Small business, berry big taste

ELAINE REEVES: A little business that got started “half by accident” three years ago is now a well-awarded concern.

Corinne Ooms and Chris Chapman at their Wild Pepper Isle stall at the Hobart Farmers Market. Picture: MATT THOMPSON

ONE of the roles of the chief judge in the Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards is to arbitrate when section judges are unable to chose between a couple of products.

Called to decide between a peppery syrup and a jelly, Eloise Emmett went for the jelly, on the grounds that making a beautiful clear jelly required a greater degree of difficulty than making a syrup.

As it turned out, not much hung on her decision. The aniseed, myrtle and rosehip jelly and the Dark Pepper Syrup were both made by Wild Pepper Isle. Then, Primary Industries minister Sarah Courtney gave her Minister’s Encouragement Award to the syrup.

Last year, Wild Pepper Isle’s Bush Jelly (pepperberry and lemon myrtle) won the same award, and recently it won Best in Class at the Australian Food Awards in Melbourne.

For a little business that got started “half by accident” three years ago it is now a well-awarded concern. Corinne Ooms came to Tasmania from her native Scotland seven years ago to backpack and see the national parks. She stayed after being offered a job in her field in food safety auditing.

Chris Chapman travelled, did a doctorate in microbiology as a mature student, worked as a guide on the Overland Track and in the building trade.

Corinne became tired of sitting in front of a computer in an office every day, and fell for “the very romantic idea of working for yourself and creating something”.

Chris was following an interesting project that morphed into a business. He too enjoys being self-directed and “kind of surviving on your wits too”.

Their skill sets expanded rapidly — recipe development, harvesting, propagation, accountancy, graphic design, website design, marketing and retailing.

Their website lists outlets all over the state where their products are sold and three in Melbourne, all of them personally approached by Chris and Corinne, who also man their own stall at Hobart’s Farm Gate Market.

Door-knocking becomes gate-rattling when they ask farmers if they might look on their properties for native pepperberries (Tasmannia lanceolata). When they find a good plot they pay royalties to the landowner.

“If we find a plant we really like we make a GPS mark, but that’s not enough to actually relocate that plant, so we put a little pile of stones around it so we can find it when we come back,” Chris said.

Corinne Ooms and Chris Chapman with some of the awards for their pepperberry products.

As well as harvesting exceptional trees, they also take cuttings for a native pepperberry orchard they are establishing at their 4ha property at Montrose. Next autumn they will plant between 500 and 1000 seedlings they have struck themselves.

Their property used to belong to of 19th century bushranger Martin Cash and he and his cottage feature on their Slatherin’ Sauce label.

The sauce, to be used liberally over anything from breakfast fry-ups to barbecues, features kunzea and wattleseed along with the pepperberry.

Pepperberries are the flagship of their products, but often quinces are the base. Their first product, quince paste flavoured with pepperberry was a hit with Bruny Island Cheese Co customers.

When they came to increase production the following year they found all commercial quince crops were promised elsewhere, so, says Chris “we decided to do the urban harvest thing and make a song and dance about it”.

“Some quince trees bear as much as 400kg,” he said. “I have seen such a tree. I took 200kg off it; someone had been there before me and I did not strip it bare.”

Facebook and word of mouth yielded 1.3 tonnes of quinces from backyards that year. They also seek crab apples in backyards and roam different farms from the pepperberry plots for rose hips and blackberries, which go into two different sweet syrups.

A new product, sold only at the market, is Pepperberry Soy Sauce, which can be as a dipping sauce for sushi or to season rice or noodle dishes. It features the juicy fresh pepperberries, as well as cracked dried pepper for “crunchy pockets of flavour and extra spiciness”.

What would you use the Dark Pepper Sauce with I asked. Gin, was the reply.

We are most familiar with dried pepperberries, but the syrup is made from fresh, juicy berries. Corinne says it is their most fun product to market, requiring as it does, visits to cocktail bars.