The largest producer of kiwi fruit and nashi pears in the country is investing millions in a fruit many Australians have never tasted or even heard of.
Seeka, which was founded in New Zealand, is planning to plant 40,000 jujube trees at its Australian operation near Shepparton in Victoria.
"A lot of growers are unwilling to make that jump to something that's in the land of the unknown, but it's kind of what we do," general manager Jonathan Van Popering said.
"We've got kiwi fruit, we've got nashi pears, there's not a great deal of growers in those industries, so for us, it's normal to be a bit different."
Jujubes come in various sizes, have a sweet-tart flavour and are often compared to apples.
While they're a mystery to many, jujubes have been around for thousands of years and are a common part of diets and traditional medicine in many Asian cultures.
"I was asking our sales manager what he really has demand for and [what] he's always getting asked about, and he happened to mention jujubes," Mr Van Popering said.
He said he did some research and found jujubes would be suited to his region's climate.
Hardy crop
The most expensive part of growing jujubes is harvest time, which accounts for half of the costs.
But Mr Van Popering said the trees made up for that during the rest of the growing season.
"It uses very little water," he said.
"We've estimated around 3 megalitres a hectare, which compared to the kiwi fruit, I mean we are up to around 10 megs [sic] a hectare.
"And there's very little expense spent through the year to get you to the point of harvest."
The company's young jujube trees also coped far better than the mature kiwi vines when the orchards were inundated last October.
"We had floodwater up to a metre deep through here," Mr Van Popering said.
"Some trees sat in water for three or four weeks.
"We lost a few but overall they handled it really well."
The hardy tree is also a prolific producer, with the first lot of plantings catching the company slightly off guard.
"Being in the pear industry, we were quite used to planting a tree and waiting a few years to even think about harvest, but we planted these trees, and the very next year, we were harvesting," Mr Van Popering said.
"They surprised us with how fast they grow."
Dried fruit to prevent oversupply
With plans to plant 40 hectares of trees by next year, there are concerns the small Australian jujube industry, which largely supplies the local Asian population, won't be able to sustain the big jump in production.
South Australian grower and nursery operator Jody Miltenoff, who supplies trees to Seeka, said the industry was ready for a bigger player.
"We can't supply the local market," Mr Miltenoff said.
"There's not enough produce to go around, so the industry needs to expand.
"It takes us out from a cottage industry into the mainstream, which is what we need."
But Mr Van Popering said not everyone was as welcoming.
"We've got a mixed reception," he said.
"Some have been OK, others have been a little hesitant to give us any ideas or really just let us in to see what the industry looks like.
"But at the end of the day, we want to maintain prices."
He said his company planned to export some fruit to avoid flooding the domestic market.
He said it was also looking at turning the majority of it into a dried product often referred to as a Chinese red date.
"When we first looked at the product I was really thinking the majority would be fresh and after that, we would sell our second class as a dried product," Mr Van Popering said.
"But we've realised 90 per cent of the world's jujubes are eaten dried, so we've really got to change our thoughts."
He said consumer knowledge about the product would be the biggest challenge.
"It's all going to come down to the right marketing strategy in the long run," he said.
While he was confident the gamble would pay off, he said the big investment and fast-paced production had made for a few sleepless nights.
"I think it sounded like a great idea at the time and I think it is a good idea, but yeah it keeps me awake at night," he said.
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