Firms eye fruit rich in vitamin C

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 48

Firms eye fruit rich in vitamin C

NZPA-AAP Darwin A native Australian plant rich in vitamin C has interested Darwin and international companies as a possible basis for a new range of processed health foods.

The fruit of Terminalia ferdinandiana has been shown to have the highestknown naturally occurring level of ascorbic acid — about 50 times greater than oranges. Known locally as the billygoat plum, the fruit appears as a small green berry about the size and colour of an olive. It has a sour taste similar to the gooseberry and has long been familiar to Aboriginals as a rich food source, but generally regarded as unpalatable by Europeans. The plant has been championed by a Darwin food consultant, Brian Woods, who believes that it could be grown commercially for products including syrups, fruit drinks, jams, yoghurt, cereals and vitamin C tablets.

After a letter appeared in the British medical journal, “The Lancet,” in 1982, about the properties of the fruit, Mr Woods began to collect wild specimens.

Early in 1984 he was approached by commercial interests in Australia and overseas and air-freighted 20kg consignments of fruit to Europe and the United States for further investigation.

In Australia, the greatest interest has been shown by a Melbourne-based health food manufacturer, Glaxo (Australia).The company sent representatives to Darwin and established trial planting blocks in different regions.

The fruit was renamed the Capricorn plum, a registered trademark. Glaxo’s chemicals division product manager, Mark Goldsworthy, said that the company was interested in the vitamin C content rather than the fruit itself. Any marketing strategy would rest on the plum’s reputation as the highest natural source of vitamin C, a title it has wrenched from a North American cherry. Although ascorbic acid could be produced more cheaply by synthetic means, people were prepared to pay for a natural product, he said. Trial processing had shown a high vitamin C content could be retained, although the method was

costly. About eight metres high, . the tree is found in the better watered areas of the Northern Territory and the north-east of Western Australia.

Flowering begins about a month after the first sub- - stantial rains and fruiting occurs between February and May. Each tree produces fruit for a period of •> no more than 10 days. ‘ Interest in the plant has also been shown by the Northern Territory Health Department and the Human Nutrition Unit of the University of Sydney. The tree takes five years .

to mature and plans for commercial orchards are still some time away. However, Mr

Goldsworthy said that the plant had so far met the criteria for product development.

But the real future of Terminalia ferdinandiana rests on its reputation as the No. 1 plant for vitamin C.

“It only takes another undiscovered fruit and it may lose that claim,” he said.

“There are many plants in Australia and overseas that have not been discovered.”