Saffron the essence of a new strategic crop for Marlborough
Saffron is used in oriental cooking and is becoming much more popular with western chefs. It comes from the stigma (female portion) of the saffron flower, has to be hand picked, separated from other parts of the flower, and dried.
Most of it is supplied by Third World countries, but quantities are dwindling and quality is highly variable.
Dave Pigou, vineyard owner and saffron grower, sees it as an ideal crop for Marlborough vineyard owners because the climate and soils are right, it can be interplanted with rows of grape vines, and the growing and harvesting seasons are complementary to grapes.
The viability of producing saffron depends on aiming at the high quality high value end of the market, and Dave and his partner David Woodley believe they have sussed that out with the development machinery to do the separation process and the production of saffron essence. If only the local council would be a just a little bit helpful.
Dave Pigou has been growing grapes on his 45ha property at Spring Creek near Blenheim since 1988. It is now almost entirely planted in grapes.
In one 2.5ha area Dave has planted saffron in between every second row of grapes two rows of grapes and then a row of saffron so that when a tractor travels down between the rows of grapes it straddles a row of saffron.
I was looking for a crop that would work in well with grapes and would complement the growing season of grapes, says Dave.
Initially I looked at crops like sugar beet, different types of vegetables, small seeds, and then I came across saffron on the Internet. It seemed ideal because it grows in winter and is dormant during the summer months when the grapes are growing, and it is harvested after the harvest of most of our grape varieties.
Dave planted the first saffron about five years ago. It produces a small amount in its first season, he says, but more subsequently.
The plant is dormant in summer, but in the first week of April it starts to flower with the peak around the 10th 14th April. Flowering lasts 5 weeks. Each flower needs to be harvested within 48 hours of its appearance. After flowering, the leaves appear and the plant grows during winter, producing around seven corms (bulbs). Every fourth year the corms are lifted, and the large ones separated out for replanting.
The larger the corm, the more flowers are produced. A medium-size corm may produce only one flower per season whereas the highest number I have counted from one large corm is 12, says Dave.
Saffron flowers are very delicate and so hand picking is essential, but with some financial assistance from Trade & Enterprise, Dave has developed machinery to separate the valuable stigma from the rest of the flower.
The machinery relies on airflow to take out firstly the petals and then the stamens, leaving a pure stigma at the end of the process, he says.
You end up with quite a lot of saffron but then it is put into a dehydrator and is dried to one third of its original weight, and you wonder where it has all gone.
I have actually cut my picking-to-drying costs back to a about $5 - $7 dollars per gram, but that doesnt include the cost of irrigation, the land, a limited amount of spraying, and the initial cost of the corms.
Saffron from Third World countries sells for about $6 - $8 per gram, but the quality is poor and the quantities are diminishing. The quality of the Marlborough product is twice as good, according to some chefs that have used it, but the returns from it are unknown at present. However, Dave is certain it will be sufficient to make the business profitable, particularly now that he and his business partner David Woodley have developed a very high quality end product.
We are patenting a saffron essence, and this is where we think the future will be because we cannot compete with the price of the material currently on supermarket shelves, says Dave.
Basically you treat it like vanilla essence, a very concentrated liquid, and it stores extremely well. It also resolves one of the problems with using dry saffron because it is very expensive and quite hard to cook with only the head chef in a restaurant uses it, they never let junior staff near it because the flavour can be destroyed very quickly.
Saffron essence is ready to use, and anyone can add it to rice or other foods in whatever quantity they like when they like. It takes away the guesswork.
Dave Pigou believes that Marlborough is ideal for saffron growing. In five years the only problem he has had has been with a Sclerotinia fungal infection in corms that have been damaged by grass grub. He hopes he has overcome this by sterilising the soil and treating the corms with fungicide.
This year we hope to harvest about 2 kg, and I would like to think that we can get up to about 5kg. Long term I am envisaging getting up to 40 to 50 kg altogether, not just on my property but going out to other vineyards around Marlborough and leasing the land between the grapes for growing saffron. With several sites it will spread our risk and help to ensure continuity of supply, says Dave.
The other important advantage we have is the availability of labour for hand harvesting. By the time saffron is flowering almost all the grape harvesting has been done, and with the demise of the pip and stone fruit industry there is not enough work available for people here. If we get up to 40 or 50 kg I envisage that will mean employment for up to 400 people, so it works in extremely well with the grape season.
Dave is completing a factory for saffron processing, and wants to make it available for other growers. He envisages flowers being transported immediately after picking to his factory for separation and drying. Once dried and suitably stored it will last some time until it can be used for essence or sold as a dry product.
The big buyers overseas don't want small quantities of variable quality, they want to have continuity of supply and consistent quality, and that is what I can provide with my machinery and processing system, says Dave.
Growers will get a guaranteed price and pay a smaller processing fee than what it would cost them to do it for themselves.
Apart from its use as a condiment saffron has been used as a dye for clothing and hair, and has a reputation as a potent nutraceutical amongst alternative health practitioners Google saffron and you find that it is said alleviate almost anything from athletes foot to dandruff but Dave sees that as a distraction at present.
We have had petals analysed and essential oil prepared from them, but although it has a pleasant aroma the opinion of the cosmetics industry is that it is not yet commercially viable, he says.
In ancient times saffron was more valuable than gold, and we certainly need to aim at the high end of the market. But we need to walk before we can run and focus on marketing the essence and growing more product so that we have a viable industry.
Dave is very grateful for the help he has received from the Dept of Trade & Enterprise in part-funding development of the machinery. He has brickbats for the local council which, he says, has put all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles in his way and is not at all encouraging to the establishment of new industries.
Most of it is supplied by Third World countries, but quantities are dwindling and quality is highly variable.
Dave Pigou, vineyard owner and saffron grower, sees it as an ideal crop for Marlborough vineyard owners because the climate and soils are right, it can be interplanted with rows of grape vines, and the growing and harvesting seasons are complementary to grapes.
The viability of producing saffron depends on aiming at the high quality high value end of the market, and Dave and his partner David Woodley believe they have sussed that out with the development machinery to do the separation process and the production of saffron essence. If only the local council would be a just a little bit helpful.
Dave Pigou has been growing grapes on his 45ha property at Spring Creek near Blenheim since 1988. It is now almost entirely planted in grapes.
In one 2.5ha area Dave has planted saffron in between every second row of grapes two rows of grapes and then a row of saffron so that when a tractor travels down between the rows of grapes it straddles a row of saffron.
I was looking for a crop that would work in well with grapes and would complement the growing season of grapes, says Dave.
Initially I looked at crops like sugar beet, different types of vegetables, small seeds, and then I came across saffron on the Internet. It seemed ideal because it grows in winter and is dormant during the summer months when the grapes are growing, and it is harvested after the harvest of most of our grape varieties.
Dave planted the first saffron about five years ago. It produces a small amount in its first season, he says, but more subsequently.
The plant is dormant in summer, but in the first week of April it starts to flower with the peak around the 10th 14th April. Flowering lasts 5 weeks. Each flower needs to be harvested within 48 hours of its appearance. After flowering, the leaves appear and the plant grows during winter, producing around seven corms (bulbs). Every fourth year the corms are lifted, and the large ones separated out for replanting.
The larger the corm, the more flowers are produced. A medium-size corm may produce only one flower per season whereas the highest number I have counted from one large corm is 12, says Dave.
Saffron flowers are very delicate and so hand picking is essential, but with some financial assistance from Trade & Enterprise, Dave has developed machinery to separate the valuable stigma from the rest of the flower.
The machinery relies on airflow to take out firstly the petals and then the stamens, leaving a pure stigma at the end of the process, he says.
You end up with quite a lot of saffron but then it is put into a dehydrator and is dried to one third of its original weight, and you wonder where it has all gone.
I have actually cut my picking-to-drying costs back to a about $5 - $7 dollars per gram, but that doesnt include the cost of irrigation, the land, a limited amount of spraying, and the initial cost of the corms.
Saffron from Third World countries sells for about $6 - $8 per gram, but the quality is poor and the quantities are diminishing. The quality of the Marlborough product is twice as good, according to some chefs that have used it, but the returns from it are unknown at present. However, Dave is certain it will be sufficient to make the business profitable, particularly now that he and his business partner David Woodley have developed a very high quality end product.
We are patenting a saffron essence, and this is where we think the future will be because we cannot compete with the price of the material currently on supermarket shelves, says Dave.
Basically you treat it like vanilla essence, a very concentrated liquid, and it stores extremely well. It also resolves one of the problems with using dry saffron because it is very expensive and quite hard to cook with only the head chef in a restaurant uses it, they never let junior staff near it because the flavour can be destroyed very quickly.
Saffron essence is ready to use, and anyone can add it to rice or other foods in whatever quantity they like when they like. It takes away the guesswork.
Dave Pigou believes that Marlborough is ideal for saffron growing. In five years the only problem he has had has been with a Sclerotinia fungal infection in corms that have been damaged by grass grub. He hopes he has overcome this by sterilising the soil and treating the corms with fungicide.
This year we hope to harvest about 2 kg, and I would like to think that we can get up to about 5kg. Long term I am envisaging getting up to 40 to 50 kg altogether, not just on my property but going out to other vineyards around Marlborough and leasing the land between the grapes for growing saffron. With several sites it will spread our risk and help to ensure continuity of supply, says Dave.
The other important advantage we have is the availability of labour for hand harvesting. By the time saffron is flowering almost all the grape harvesting has been done, and with the demise of the pip and stone fruit industry there is not enough work available for people here. If we get up to 40 or 50 kg I envisage that will mean employment for up to 400 people, so it works in extremely well with the grape season.
Dave is completing a factory for saffron processing, and wants to make it available for other growers. He envisages flowers being transported immediately after picking to his factory for separation and drying. Once dried and suitably stored it will last some time until it can be used for essence or sold as a dry product.
The big buyers overseas don't want small quantities of variable quality, they want to have continuity of supply and consistent quality, and that is what I can provide with my machinery and processing system, says Dave.
Growers will get a guaranteed price and pay a smaller processing fee than what it would cost them to do it for themselves.
Apart from its use as a condiment saffron has been used as a dye for clothing and hair, and has a reputation as a potent nutraceutical amongst alternative health practitioners Google saffron and you find that it is said alleviate almost anything from athletes foot to dandruff but Dave sees that as a distraction at present.
We have had petals analysed and essential oil prepared from them, but although it has a pleasant aroma the opinion of the cosmetics industry is that it is not yet commercially viable, he says.
In ancient times saffron was more valuable than gold, and we certainly need to aim at the high end of the market. But we need to walk before we can run and focus on marketing the essence and growing more product so that we have a viable industry.
Dave is very grateful for the help he has received from the Dept of Trade & Enterprise in part-funding development of the machinery. He has brickbats for the local council which, he says, has put all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles in his way and is not at all encouraging to the establishment of new industries.