A variety of mango developed and grown exclusively in Far North Queensland will be available in supermarkets this summer.<\/p>\n
What is now called the Ruby Gold mango was discovered growing off the branch of a Kensington Pride tree on the Palumbo family’s farm in Dimbulah, west of Cairns, sparking a decade of grafting and planting.<\/p>\n
John Nardi, business manager for tropical fruits with wholesaler Favco, has been working with the growers since he helped them identify the variety.<\/p>\n
“It’s just got a really good strong Kensington Pride-type flavour, which is what we all love,” he said.<\/p>\n
“[But it’s] typically a bit stronger than normal Kensington Pride. It’s a little less fibrous as well, so not quite as stringy.”<\/p>\n
The Ruby Gold mango has a strong flavour, similar to the Kensington Pride, and is less fibrous compared to other varieties. (Supplied: John Nardi)<\/p>\n
The Ruby Gold variety has been officially registered with plant breeders and has its own Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) status, which requires testing to prove its difference to other mangoes.<\/p>\n
“Typically [it] has a really nice ruby, maroon sort of blush to it, so it looks fantastic,” Mr Nardi said.<\/p>\n
This year he is expecting 15,000 trays of the Ruby Gold mango to enter the market after years of sales at a smaller scale.<\/p>\n
“We’re hoping that obviously these volumes will grow over the next few years, and we’ll be looking at producing more trees and getting more growers on board with it in years to come,” Mr Nardi said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The “blush” on the mango’s skin helps the variety stand out. (Supplied: John Nardi)<\/p>\n
Successful market trials<\/p>\n
Mr Nardi has worked with Melbourne-based agent and Produce of Virginia director Peter Tran over the past two years to trial markets for Ruby Gold.<\/p>\n
“When they mentioned that there was a new variety coming through the market that they wanted to try and trial in Melbourne I was more than keen to put my hand up and give it a crack \u2014 and lucky I did,” Mr Tran said.<\/p>\n
He has been bringing small amounts of the variety to independent supermarkets and retailers and said consumers had responded well.<\/p>\n
“I was blown away by the blush on the skin, it was incredible \u2026 and once [I] had a taste of it, I was like, this is a winner \u2014 this can’t be beat,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There are some things you just know as an agent \u2014 you know what will sell, what will do well, what will do badly \u2014 but this variety of mango when we saw it, we were like, ‘Yep, that’s a winner’.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fifteen thousand trays of Ruby Gold mangoes are expected to be available this season. (Supplied: John Nardi)<\/p>\n
Ruby Gold is being marketed as a premium variety and Mr Tran is keen to bring more of the fruit to his clients as the crop volumes grow.<\/p>\n
“There hasn’t been enough to supply \u2026 because the crop has been quite small,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Demand has always been a bit high and we’re actually very excited to see a commercial crop coming out this season where we can supply in decent quantities for the independent [market].”<\/p>\n
Ruby Gold mangoes are likely to be available on the market by the end of November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A variety of mango developed and grown exclusively in Far North Queensland will be available in supermarkets this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,161584,99,161576,161583,161585,161581,161577,161578,161579,161580,161582],"class_list":["post-278772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-best-tasting-mango","tag-business","tag-john-nardi","tag-kensington-pride","tag-least-stringy-mango","tag-new-mango-varieties","tag-peter-tran","tag-produce-of-virginia","tag-ruby-gold","tag-ruby-gold-mango","tag-where-are-mangoes-grown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}