Established 1986
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Established 1986
ONE of Australia’s biggest strawberry growers is using NASA-developed technology to reduce food waste.
And the fact this move has opened new domestic and international markets, is really just the “strawberry on top”, for the Queensland farming family as they strive to create a circular economy business model.
For more than six years Gina Dang and her husband Toan Nguyen researched options for their family’s waste fruit.
Donating the “rejected” strawberries for cattle feed and charities or aged-care centres for cooking, had worked in the short term, but it wasn’t sustainable, nor even practical.
Afterall, up to 300 tonnes of strawberries a year was a lot to deal with, even for hungry livestock.
“For the few years we donated to a cattle farmer, early in the season he’d bring a truck load of strawberries into the paddock and the cows would run after the truck – they could smell the strawberries,” Toan explained.
“By the end of the season, they’d run away. They were sick of strawberries.”
Ruling out wine, jam and puree production, Gina and Toan settled on freeze-drying.
A concept created by NASA to provide food for astronauts in space, the couple decided it was the best way to retain the fruits’ nutrients.
It was also a bold, innovative move that few others had explored in Australian horticulture.
“It’s inline with our value of providing quality food and healthy food,” Gina said.
“If you freeze-dry 100 per cent of the fruit, you don’t have to add sugar or anything, it’s such a tasty, airy, crunchy snack.”
That’s how Gina’s Table – the retail brand of one of Australia’s largest fresh strawberry producers SSS Strawberries – started making packets of freeze dried fruit snacks.
Now, a few years later, with the opening of their own Entegra-built 4000-square metre freeze-drying facility at Thabeban in Queensland – the next stage of the Dang family’s business evolution has started.
SSS Strawberries is a family business established by Gina’s parents and it includes her siblings Victor, Lilly, Cindy, Thanh, Trinity, Rena and their families.
The strawberry growing enterprise began in Western Australia with 5 acres and relocated to Bundaberg in Queensland, more than 20 years ago, where the business expanded to include 300 acres, more than 4 million strawberry plants and produce 3000 tonnes of strawberries a year.
SSS Strawberries sells fresh fruit to a wholesaler that supplies Woolworths, Costco and Aldi, while the Dang family also operate a farm store – selling fresh produce to Wide Bay and Burnett region locals.
A corner-stone employer in the region, SSS strawberries has a staff of 350 and thanks to Gina’s Table – and the specialist freeze-drying facility – workforce numbers will increase.
The freeze-drying facility was built on a greenfield industrial site.
The 33 metre clear-span shed included plenty of room to house the 13 tonne freeze-drying machine purchased from Denmark, machinery to wash the fruit, remove the strawberry leaf (decalyx) before slicing, snap-freezing, packing and dispatching.
The business even left space for future expansion.
Gina said building with Entegra helped them develop their vision into reality.
“The key to something like this is that it is very new, in Australia there isn’t much history with facilities like this,” she said. “Working with a construction company that doesn’t have an open mind or that isn’t flexible – that can create a lot of struggle. Entegra were open minded and flexible and they not only had someone in our area, they had experience building sheds like this. That gave us peace-of-mind.”
Unlike a fresh strawberry that’s 90 per cent water and perishable, the freeze-dried version is light, can travel easily and has 24 months shelf-life.
A stark contrast to the fresh fruit the Dangs’ have long picked, packed and transported across the nation.
Available in Woolworths, online with Amazon and independent grocers, Gina’s Table sells freeze dried strawberries and their specialist HAPPLES™ snack – freeze-dried apple bites available with dustings of various fruit flavours such as strawberry, raspberry and mango.
The colourful, bright packets look how they taste – fun.
Gina said it’s something she brings into the office and her two children love to eat at school.
“Our kids love strawberries, but they aren’t really attracted to fruit a lot,” she said.
“But because it’s freeze-dried they eat it, like chips and candy, there’s the crunch of the fruit but not the juice.”
A chocolate and yoghurt covered treat will soon be added to the mix too.
“Imagine eating a Malteser with a freeze-dried strawberry in the middle,” Toan explained.
“That’s what it is like and there’s three flavours of chocolate.
“We are creating more fun in food, it’s the same fresh nutrient value inside chocolate,” Gina added.
Freeze-drying has also opened a new international market for Gina’s Table – with products set to launch into the United States and South East Asia soon.
Supermarkets will be the main distribution channel as well as Amazon in the US.
While this isn’t the Dangs’ first foray into exporting – they sold strawberries to Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong from Western Australia – it’s the first time they’ve supplied processed products to a global market.
This international push is as much about creating new markets as it is about cementing the family business for the future.
Sustainability was at the heart of plans for the freeze-drying facility and Gina’s Table.
Taking steps towards a circular economy ensured the business would have the environmental, social and economic foundations for expansion when the 12 third-generation “strawberry growers” move into the fold.
Gina, Toan and their siblings want to enable the next generation to explore their passions but also provide an opportunity within the family business.
“It is not just a farm now, it’s a big business where every area of expertise is required from legal, to accountancy, marketing, digital, IT, property management,” Gina said.
“It’s so diversified, it’s not just focused on the growing-side anymore, there’s so much involved to get a product on the shelf,” Toan added.
Quite a leap for humble Western Australian strawberry growers.
BANGING a bundle of chopsticks on the table Gem Nguyen made a point to her seven children.
The matriarch of the business that will become one of Australia’s largest strawberry growers wanted to prove the value and strength of family.
It was a tough time.
Her family, the Dangs, had moved their strawberry operation from Western Australia to Bundaberg in Queensland and financial pressures were mounting.
“Fights and tears” followed as siblings contemplated futures outside of horticulture and the family business their parents established after immigrating from Vietnam and spending four years in an Indonesian refugee camp.
Gem first took one chopstick and showed her children how easy it was to break, her daughter Gina recounted.
She then did the same with a bundle of chopsticks and they didn’t break.
That demonstration was all it took for the siblings to work together.
And from that moment SSS Strawberries, lived up to its name – Seven Successful Siblings.
“It’s funny how one moment, one decision made us put our head down and make change,” Gina said, recounting the sliding-doors moment.
“Because of that, the universe just made the right people come towards us and the right things happen.”
SSS Strawberries has recently opened its own freeze-drying facility to value-add waste from its farm production and provide healthy, delicious fruit snacks under its retail brand – Gina’s Table.
With 4 million strawberry plants producing 3000 tonnes of fruit each year, the decision to utilise the 300 tonnes of strawberries not fit for the Australian domestic market ensures the sustainability of the family operation.
It also provides extra jobs on top of the 350 staff already employed within the strawberry business and opportunities for the third generation of the Dang family.
As for the name of the new retail enterprise – Gina’s motive was clear.
“I’m close to the middle, the older children get all the responsibility, the younger ones all the credit and the middle one – well they always get ignored,” Gina laughed.
“I’ll never be ignored now it is called Gina’s Table, it gets mentioned every day.”
