Chocolate-dipped dried apricots are making a statement on store shelves and on share platters, as regional Australia's premium producers lead the industry in a new direction.
Demand for the bespoke products has risen in the past five years, allowing small businesses to explode onto the market.This is at the same time that the traditional dried fruit sector experiences a continuous decline, as many large-scale producers are finding it increasingly unprofitable to produce the fruit.
An exciting time for premium producers
While large businesses are leaving the dried fruit industry, chocolate sweet sapphire smaller and more boutique dried fruit business are popping up in their place.
Niche Fruits is a small, family-owned dried fruit producer in South Australia's Riverland selling dried peaches, apricots, pears, nectarines, and plums.
The family has grown fruit trees on their Renmark property for more than 60 years.
Owner and manager Charmaine Size said demand for specialty products, such as white chocolate-dipped lemons, has gone through the roof in recent years.
"I was spending until 2 o'clock in the morning packing orders and then I had to be up at 6 in the morning to go to a cafe where I worked locally and it was just insane."
Niche Fruits experienced such a surge in product demand, Ms Size left her job 12 months ago to focus on the family business.
She said she now worked full time value-adding and packaging the fruit.
We can grow [the business] as much as we want, basically," Ms Size said.
"At the moment we are just keeping it tight and family, but there is definitely room to grow as big as we want."
Ms Size said demand had been strong all year around, but she expected more to come.
"We have a trio medley [pack], which is chocolate-dipped, [and we're] looking at gift hampers for Christmas," she said.
Family story helps sell the product
Fellow Riverland-based business, Singing Magpie Produce, has also expanded into the premium dried fruits industry.
Owner Sue Heward said she received four months worth of orders in just two days, reinforcing that premium dried fruit products were in vogue.
"They want to know your story, they want to be able to know where their food comes from, they want to know it's got minimal preservatives, and they want to know that they can support small business."
At the family farm in Monash, Ms Heward grows figs and quinces that help supply the domestic dried fruit market.
"It's never been a story for us about trying to get massive, and lose quality," she said.
Wholesale cycle is an uphill battle
For some large-scale producers, selling to wholesalers at a lower price is their only option.
"There's a model where people go fully wholesale, so they don't really have time to value-add," Ms Heward said.
Dried Tree Fruits Australia chairman Kris Werner said selling to a wholesaler was not always viable.
"The [market] is stagnant, the price hasn't changed, wholesalers don't want to pay more. It's really making it hard for growers to survive," he said.
"For the value-adding side of it, yes, there is more demand. But it's tedious and expensive.
"For those who are prepared to hang on, prepared to do the work, [they] will profit from it."
A challenging time for growers
Mr Werner said there were several major factors that were making it difficult for farmers to produce fruit.
"As far as dried stone fruit goes, by the time you do all the work, you're probably better off leasing your water out rather than trying to grow fruit," he said.
"It's unfortunate the way it is, the price of water like it is, the conditions like they are, everything's playing against us at the moment."
He said many growers had pulled out of the industry in recent years.
"Ten years ago we would have had 200–300 growers. Now I think we'd be scratching to get 100," Mr Werner said.
