Two new products - a drink and a snack food - have been made using rejected fruits from Carnarvon's banana co-operative.
Unloved bananas from Carnarvon have been turned into vodka by a Swan Valley distiller, and Perth Royal Show patrons will be the first to road-test a new dried snack product next month.
Herne Hill-based Damaged Goods Distilling opened in October last year and has since the get-go worked on turning rejected Sweeter Banana Co-Operative bananas into a vodka product.
The fruits of distillery co-owners Tim Laferla and Pia Papenfuss’ labour was launched at the Perth Good Food and Wine Show in August and has now hit the shelves.
About three kilos of bananas are used in every bottle, and Mr Laferla said the distiller planned to increase that to 14 kilograms.
“We always wanted to do something with bananas because bananas are one of, if not the most wasted fruit,” he said.
“They don't have as many or as big an industry supporting secondary uses like other fruits… such as a juicing industry
“Bananas are a lot trickier (to distill).
“Because we are using atypical ingredients for what we do there's not off-the-shelf techniques or equipment that exists, so we kind of have to coddle together what is already out there, and then develop our own process.”
Vodka aside, Sweeter Banana Group will be handing out samples of its latest product at the Perth Royal Show in September: freeze-dried banana slices aimed at the snack food market.
The new products are part of the group’s drive to find a market for its waste, which in the past two decades seen an industry which once threw away 60 per cent of its product now selling more than 98 per cent of its crop.
Sweeter Banana Group business manager Doriana Mangili said the snack was one of the first products to come out of a new value-add facility partially funded by a state government grant.
“Our dream is that we will be zero waste,” she said.
“Everything that can be eaten is eaten, and everything that isn't edible, is still turned into something that adds value
“We are working with Curtin University, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, and growers at the moment looking at all the different potential uses of all the waste we have, even the stalks.”
