Ancient grain, teff, enters the retail market

Ancient grains have become part of the modern diet, with quinoa and chia featuring in many recipes due to their nutritional value.

Farmers from the New South Wales Riverina recognised their popularity and aimed to diversify their crops to include an ancient grain, teff. Teff is a gluten-free whole grain with a higher fibre content than wheat and rice. It is the world’s smallest grain and it originates from Ethiopia where its main use is in injera bread.

Previously, the McNauls focused on growing wheat, barley, corn and rice; however, their focus on using teff stems from their aim to become more sustainable and innovative. Fitting between their usual rotations of crops, Teff’s growing season runs between December and March, which allowed the McNauls to plant two varieties of the ancient grain, brown and ivory.

"We want to develop some products out of it that are more in line with the western palate, so that's what we are working on at the moment with our paddock to plate process under our own brand," stated Fraser McNaul.

In order to introduce this into the Western diet, they started a company, Outback Harvest, and approached CSIRO to help them develop Australian-grown teff baked goods and snacks.

"With CSIRO's expertise in food innovation and new product development, they produced prototype muffins, bread and dry cake mixes," McNaul said. "They also developed healthy extruded teff snacks. Their facilities and expertise helped make it all happen."

The McNauls developed prototype muffins, bread and dry cake mixes using brown and ivory teff varieties as well as a crunchy snack ball made from teff. These products are currently being commercialised and Fraser McNaul has relocated to Melbourne to organise the packaging, marketing and distribution of the first retail products.

The snacks have been endorsed as gluten-free by Coeliac Australia and Coeliac New Zealand, which has also gained significant interest.

McNaul explained their future plans to introduce further products into the retail and wholesale market. "We're also looking at other value-adding opportunities like snack bars, tortillas and flat breads, and exporting to Asia."