July 2021

Ensure the right problem is being solved and then solving it in the best way possible.

“There is a huge banana waste problem. Every week, here in north Queensland, around 2.5 million bananas are wasted because of oversupply or crops not matching supermarket standards. 

As banana farmers, it was demoralising seeing all your hard work go to waste – literally. Not just for us, but for other farmers too. And when cyclones came along, income was wiped out virtually overnight. We endured two! This wasn’t a sustainable way of making a living. 

We’d noticed too that wallabies and cattle on the farm were stepping over the ripe bananas to get to the green bananas. We hypothesised that green bananas might deliver nutritional benefits. 

We began making green banana flour by hand and as demand grew, with numerous customers telling us they not only found it delicious but felt healthier too, we recognised the opportunity to scale.

But how and to who, exactly? And was there really something in this banana flour that was bringing curative effects for people?”

Make sure you understand the needs, wants and desires of your customer or end-user at the deepest level possible to ensure you are solving their unmet needs.

“Rob, my partner, had suffered coeliac symptoms for years. He wasn’t impressed with the majority of gluten free products on the market, and we suspected that others may feel the same way.

We did our own desktop research. We could see there was a rise in alternative eating, with more and more consumers looking for gluten free products.  

This would be a new product that we would need to introduce to the marketplace. This certainly was an opportunity!

Over the years, we’ve learnt about our consumer less through formal research and more from face-to-face contact and through our own data. I’ve attended countless Health and Wellness, and Gourmet Food Shows, here and internationally. They give you a unique first-hand understanding of how difficult it is to find gluten-free alternatives that taste great. 

Our Facebook for Business account and online back-end data has also given us great insight into what people are searching for and why.”

Take the best idea and turn it into a realistic outcome so that it can be tested and critiqued so that any flaws can be identified and re-designed. The final prototype is tested and validated.

“From selling only in the family café, we thought we would test out selling online. We were early adopters of Facebook for Business and got a web designer to set us up an online shop. Soon we were selling so much, we couldn’t supply enough bananas from our farm to keep up with the demand. So, we started buying bananas from others farms in the state – Cavendish and Lady Finger bananas. 

Over time we tried our process on other fruit and vegetables – broccoli and sweet potato for example. NutroLock^™ technology can now be used to create products from a range of other fruits and vegetables, and effectively preserves the nutritional benefits for up to three years.  

We had to know more about the supposed health properties of our flour, that had been mentioned by some of our customers. After accessing a FIAL grant, we took both a Cavendish and Lady Finger banana sample to a testing lab. 

Resistant starches, unlike normal starches, are not digested in the small intestine, providing numerous benefits including helping to prevent colon cancer and diabetes, promoting weight loss and boosting the immune system. It is antimicrobial to harmful bacteria and can be used in literally hundreds of applications, from baked goods to boost nutritional profile, to cosmetic and pharmaceutical uses for diet and skin care. More desktop research told us that there was a huge global market for this stuff!”

“Over the years we have commissioned research from many universities to inform how we proceed. We worked with the University of Queensland to understand more about pasta made from green banana powder and the effect that had on digestion. 

We’ve worked with others including the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Queensland (DAF) and the University of Queensland and Tasmania, mainly to discover what else is in the powder and how it could be turned into other products. 

We are currently working with a hospital research team who anticipate that our resistant starch may help kidney transplant patients by lowering the rate of rejection as well as lowering secondary infections. 

Research results informed how we proceeded with our products. We recognised the opportunity to produce the higher value prebiotic powder and other health products from the more expensive Lady Finger bananas. We decided to leave the more readily available, and lower price point Cavendish Bananas for baking product. 

We took banana flour, broccoli and sweet potato flour to market, replacing our homemade bags with professional packaging design. We brought in a Marketing specialist to help us launch some pre-mix cake and dough products and advise on how to improve our online shop. 

This is a unique synergy of three fibre groups, vitamins and minerals that delivers an all-natural product designed to optimise gut health. It is registered as a food with health claims through FSANZ including support and protection of a healthy gut microbiome and support of gut barrier health, among others.

It was an iterative process, with a lot of trial and error over an extended timeframe to create this new product. We had to determine the perfect balance of plant fibres and probiotics to ensure consumer palatability derived from only all-natural ingredients.

We used it on our blue heelers who would suffer ‘hot spots’ a bacterial infection related to staph that is present during tropical months. Its effect was transformational and fast – we wanted other people and animals to experience it.

The only reason we have not launched in the US market, is that we are struggling to keep up with current demand. When our new facility comes online in 2022, we will launch in the US. 

To meet the increasing consumer demand for the banana flour and in order to scale the health supplement side of the business we applied for a grant from Commercialisation Australia. 

This facility can produce one tonne of flour during an eight hour, two-person shift, and the richest and most natural prebiotic supplements. 

We also applied to FIAL for funding to help us execute and deliver our design for a new drying technology.

Working alongside design engineers and a software designer, we have developed a new Blade Dry model that not only provides us with ten times the volume, but it can simultaneously mill and dry large volumes of highly fibrous material, delivering an end product that has even greater nutritional integrity. 

We are in the process of replicating this technology to help advance opportunities for other Australian farmers and businesses that require disposal of organic matter, or for pharmaceutical production. They too could create products from waste on a commercial scale. 

Initially, we marketed our banana flour under a different shelf name. When we recognised the opportunity to produce prebiotic powder and other health products, we changed our name to ‘Natural Evolution’ to better reflect the consumer’s expectations. We created the brand name and engaged a designer to bring our visual identity to life.

Now we are selling our drying processing technology to farms around Australia to help them create more scientifically verified functional foods and products from their own fruit or vegetable waste we have again redeveloped our business model. ‘Evolution Industries’  better aligns to our new customers’ expectations.  

This means that within any given area of particular fruit or vegetable mix, there would be a central processing location that the farms would send their produce just for bagging and blending.   

I’ve been looking into purchasing a new facility for the first one. Not only would it do the bagging and blending but we would bring the brand part of our business together under the one roof and hire a full-time visual designer. I may create a precinct where we can join with other complementary food producers working with food waste. 

We no longer grow bananas on our own farm but buy it from others farms across the state. Last year, we purchased over 1 million metric tonnes of bananas. We have developed a unique quality assurance program that traces those bananas from paddock to factory.

Growers have the option of another marketplace for their produce and in fact the potential to earn more for their higher grades of bananas. Rather than sending to the fresh food market growers they have the option to supply to us. This means they save on packaging and freight especially when prices are low due to oversupply in the fresh fruit market.

Everything we have done has been driven by a desire to reduce food waste and tread more lightly on the earth. 

The bananas we now buy from other farms are grown organically and bio-dynamically with optimal nutrition and care to ensure we deliver the best nutrient dense and completely natural food product for our customers.

This has transformed not just our lives as (ex) banana growers giving us a more secure income, but its effect is being felt across Queensland. 

It is reducing food waste on a state, if not national scale, while increasing the security and wellbeing of families and communities.”

Ensure the right problem is being solved and then solving it in the best way possible.

“We are third generation apple growers. We have been growing apples for over seventy years and we wanted to make sure we were here for the next seventy! 

We knew we needed to innovate beyond our core business, to secure the future for the next generations. The supermarkets were increasingly upping the ante on the specifications for Grade 1 fruit, which meant that more of our apples were being demoted to Grade 2 and used only for juice – and at a much lower return. Plus, fresh apple consumption in Australia was also declining. These conditions combined reduced the future viability of our orchard business. 

We needed to find a new way to use our quality apples that fall just short of supermarket specification. To start this journey, we undertook a market review to understand how and why consumer apple consumption had changed and to investigate consumer food trends.”

Make sure you understand the needs, wants and desires of your customer or end-user at the deepest level possible to ensure you are solving their unmet needs.

“We commissioned a consumer insight research agency. Consumers wanted apple consumption to be nutritious. This was something we felt deeply passionate about too – more than 1 in 2 children and 7 in 10 adults are not currently meeting recommended daily fibre intakes. They wanted it to be convenient, quick to consume when ‘on-the-go’ and with no mess (e.g., no core!). Something like an apple, but not an apple! Something nutritious and filling to better suit a modern Australian lifestyle. 

Through this research we also narrowed down our target group. This was a young demographic interested in health and wellness who wanted maximum nutritional value and were actively looking for healthy food snack replacements.

We then invested in market analysis to identify key food product opportunities. There’s no point developing a product first, and then going back to the market and hoping it fits! 

We spent considerable time looking at market trends here in Australia, and overseas. What are people looking for? Where are the gaps? Where was the opportunity?”

Generate innovative ideas to help solve those needs and desires. Take the best idea and pursue further to find the most feasible for the company, most viable commercially and most desirable to the customer.

“Working with a Brisbane based food innovation expert, we came up with several new product ideas that matched our key research learnings about how consumers use and perceive apples. 

We created several new product ideas at bench level and independently tested some of these with consumers.”

Take the best idea and turn it into a realistic outcome so that it can be tested and critiqued so that any flaws can be identified and re-designed. The final prototype is tested and validated.

“We found a highly skilled food processing engineer to further develop the product concepts. 

After developing a method for each prototype, we did an additional two rounds of product concepts, testing them with the target group to make sure the prototypes actually matched consumer needs and expectations in terms of taste, performance, flavour and texture.  

To really solve our business problem though, we wanted to create a product with a whole-apple full nutritional profile which meant maximising all three components of the apple – the pulp, the peel and the juice. Creating a method to do this presented a significant challenge. It had to utilise the whole apple to maintain the nutritional benefits, as well as preserve the fresh apple taste and have a delicious texture.

It was healthy, containing the full nutritional value of a whole apple (unlike juice) and was convenient – it’s an apple on the run. We knew we were on to a winner!

It took us three years to get the unique manufacturing process bedded down. FIAL supported us by matching funding which allowed us to further develop the product for commercialisation.

While the innovation journey wasn’t easy, we failed quickly and early so we could eliminate those ideas that weren’t feasible at scale.”

Use what we have learned about the customer to inform how we proceed.

Upple^® stands alone in a new beverage category of drinkable whole fruit, offering a far higher fibre and nutritional level than fruit juice. 

Upple^® was launched through greengrocers in Queensland, a number of IGAs and to the school market. To date Upple^® has also achieved extensive distribution in NSW through large IGA’s and a major retailer, Harris Farm Markets. We’ve had interest from airlines, a number of supermarket retailers, more schools and are looking at export markets. COVID has just slowed it all down.

One of the biggest challenges was to find a way of achieving a viscosity or thickness of the product that was pleasant to drink. We liaised with the University of Queensland (UQ) to use equipment which could measure apple fibre particles so they couldn’t be noticed in the mouth.

To manage our value-added business, we set up a new innovation arm of P. Savio & Co called Savio Healthy Innovations. Upple^® is the first new product to be commercialised and we are continuing to develop other product ideas which leverage our brand, food processing skills and market opportunities. 

Our new innovation division allows us to focus both on our apple growing and value adding pursuits and develop skills within the family.

We created a strong brand name ‘Upple^®’ that is now trademarked globally, visual identity and a unique packaging design. 

The raw material, whole fresh apples, are supplied directly from our orchard. In time, we hope to be able to use out-of-spec apples from the whole district.  

We worked with experienced Queensland suppliers on our marketing and packaging and brought skilled workers in to build the new factory facility and mentor family staff.

Upple^® is produced on site at our orchard in a custom-designed HACCP accredited new facility using a unique manufacturing patent-pending process.

To align with our consumer values (and subsequently our brand values) we’ve created a custom apple-shaped bottle from 100% recycled plastic that is itself recyclable.

We are also contributing to reducing the food waste problem in Australia, which accounts for more than 5% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions (according to the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment).”