In short:
Stephen Reiffer says demand is growing for yuzu, which he grows on his South West WA property.
A chef says the fruit is versatile and can be used in food and beverages.
What’s next?
Mr Reiffer wants to grow his orchard to 5,000 trees.
Stephen Reiffer is keen to show everyone the Japanese citrus fruit he grows is so much more than “an ugly lemon”.
The 64-year-old first planted a few more than 100 yuzu trees on his 60-hectare South West WA property four years ago.
Mr Reiffer has since entered a market he said was quite “unknown” in a bid to one day have more than 5,000 trees in his orchard.
He said he already had more than 2,500 trees either in the ground or ready to be planted.
“I’d been looking for something to do to keep me busy in my retirement and I think we’ve chosen a very hard, labour-intensive thing,” Mr Reiffer said.
“But I do believe we live [to be] old if we keep our mind busy and fit and healthy.”
He said he hoped the popularity of yuzu would continue to grow as more restaurants began to use it.
“It’s a hearty fruit, which is sometimes called an ugly lemon, with an intense flavour,” he said.
“The Japanese say that the citrus fruit originated from the mountains of Japan.
“It is idolised by Asian countries and they go out of their way to source it and use it as often as possible.”
The ‘ugly lemon’
Mr Reiffer said the region’s soil and abundance of water had helped his crops flourish.
He said he had not used fertiliser or chemicals when managing the trees.
“We know pretty much every tree by name, we walk to the paddocks and see what is happening,” Mr Reiffer said.
“The size of our fruit has grown substantially from last year. We are keen to expand since we have sold out of everything we produced.”
Premium for unique product
Mr Reiffer said he wanted to produce two to three times as many yuzu as what he did the past growing season.
As much as it was a passion project, he said he was struggling to keep up with demand from WA restaurants.
“I wouldn’t say that our customers are dissatisfied with us, they just want to see more,” Mr Reiffer said.
“But you can’t employ an army straight off, you’ve got to get your hands dirty, and develop the product and learn with it.”
But the neon-yellow fruit doesn’t come cheaply to those wanting to use the ingredient in their dishes.
“We were charging about $45 a kilo, we’ve been able to trim that a bit and our regular suppliers now buy at $39 a kilo,” Mr Reiffer said.
“It sounds like a lot, but unlike major citrus orchards, you can’t produce hundred and hundreds of tons of this sort of thing, it’s unique.
“There’s not much of the fruit you can’t use, you get a lot of benefits from yuzu.”
Driving demand
Chef and owner of the Blue Manna Bistro in Dunsborough, Coby Cockburn, said he bought the product from Mr Reiffer’s company, Yuzu West.
“I started to see it come onto the market about five or six years ago but it wasn’t until recently where I was able to source it fresh,” Mr Cockburn said.
“I’ve got more and more from [Mr Reiffer] as it has grown.
“It is extremely popular and it goes perfectly with seafood.”
He said the fruit was quite expensive in comparison to other citrus like lemons but he said a little went a long way.
“You can use it in so many ways, at the moment I am using the juice for our butter sauce on crayfish, in the bar you can use it for margaritas,” he said.
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