Manjimup biggest truffle producer in Southern Hemisphere

Manjimup biggest truffle producer in Southern Hemisphere

Manjimup, Western Australia has found itself on the world culinary map as the biggest producing region in the southern hemisphere of black truffles.

While France, Spain and Italy are the biggest growers in Europe there is a seasonal shortage of black truffles. It’s during our winter that Manjimup turns up the heat on the truffle business.

One local producer, The Wine & Truffle Company exports its truffles to restaurants in Japan, New York, Korea and Europe, flying them in during their own country’s off-season and paying top price for the pleasure.

With the price of Australian truffles going for over $3000 per kilogram it is easy to think that truffle farming is the culinary equivalent to a gold rush. “Everyone thinks it’s an industry where they’re going to be trillionaires if they enter it,” says Alan Nelson Chief executive of The Wine & Truffle Company.

“But it’s very hard. We still don’t know why a truffle produces. We still don’t know why one tree will produce and another one won’t.

“We still don’t know how to get consistently good truffles out of different trees. It is a real mystery. And that’s what is unique about them.

“We don’t even know when the season will start. It’s sort of knife-edged stuff as to whether it will start at the end of May or the beginning of June and it only goes through for about 14 weeks.”

Truffles are unique underground mushrooms that grow on the roots of oak and hazelnut trees that either naturally host the fungi or have been inoculated with truffle spores.

Truffle production in Australia began in Tasmania in the 1990s with assistance from Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC). Production has spread to all other states.

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