Producer Profile – Island Berries Tasmania
We recently caught up with the team behind beloved Tassie brand Island Berries. Read on to find out all about their amazing business, their plans for growth and a new brand name.
Island Berries Tasmania has supplied us with their delicious jams, coulis, relishes, sauces, pastes and other fabulous products, since our very early days at the original Hill Street store on the corner of Hill and Pine Streets, West Hobart.
Today, more than two decades on, our relationship is still going strong, and with a wider stable of products than you might realise.
We caught up with founder, Andre Richardson, General Manager Laura Redpath and Ryan O’Donnell, Marketing and Sales Manager, at their Cambridge factory to learn all about their business and some exciting times ahead, including a name change to their most well-known brand.
Q: How did you start in this business?
A: The business was started in 1998 by our founder Andre Richardson. He had just moved to Tasmania and was on dialysis treatment, on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. Not one to sit around and do nothing, and with a family background in cake shops, restaurants and wine making, he hired a kitchen and began making Summer Berry Pudding to sell at Salamanca Market.
Over the years, Andre slowly expanded the range and the business through tireless effort and one guiding principle: you will always sell a quality product.
Q: What do you produce and where do you produce it?
A: We produce a wide range of sweet and savoury products using Tasmanian grown ingredients at our factory at Kennedy Drive, in Cambridge, in southern Tasmania.
Our Island Harvest product range, which your customers will know well under the brand Island Berries, includes jams, coulis, a wide selection of fruit pastes, rich dessert sauces, and of course our multi-award-winning panna cottas.
We also produce a range of savory chutneys and relishes under our brand Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen – your customers will be familiar with Bill’s Beetroot Marmalade, Bill’s Red Pepper Marmalade and Caroline’s Caramelised Onion, to name a few.
Our stable of products also includes the Hobart Whisky Co products like the Tasmanian Whisky BBQ Sauce and the Hobart Whisky Co Preserved Apricots, and we also make the fruit mixes for Valhalla and VDL for their icecreams, and for Westhaven’s yoghurts.
Q: Tell us about your business today.
A: We now have our own facility, which we built and opened in 2016. With 10 full time employees, the day-to-day operations are run by Andre’s stepdaughter Laura. The same principle of quality first guides all our recipes and processes so even though we have scaled up, we still do most things by hand and cook in small batches, based on kitchen-style recipes. Despite being a small business, we are very efficient and are always improving our processes so as to produce less waste. We invested in a large solar array to reduce energy consumption and will soon be extending our site to build a storage and freezer facility, which will also run on solar power.
Q: How did you come to work with Hill Street?
A: We have been working with Hill Street for over two decades now. They have supported our business and we in turn have supported them back. It’s hard to remember how it started!
Q: What is special about your products?
A: Our products speak not only of the place that they are grown but of the community that they come from. We take the French concept of ‘terroir’ being the combination of soil, climate, aspect, location etc, and we add in ‘community’ – the support of the suppliers, distributors, retailers and consumers that are all part of the fabric of the products we make. Our products are distinctly Tasmanian and echo not only where they are from but the community that they come from and how that community lives. It’s a nice place to be and an even nicer way to live – in tune with the seasons and in celebration of the harvest that is to be captured and enjoyed.
Q: Which is your personal favourite and why?
Ryan: The Gin-soaked Berry Paste stands out for me as it’s very high-quality Tassie fruit that has been used to make one product, and then value-added to make a secondary product that is simply amazing in its taste profile. It’s an example of our close business network in Tasmania working together to minimise waste and produce products that are distinctively Tasmanian.
Laura: It’s the Hobart Whisky Co Preserved Apricots for me. On hard days I eat them straight out of the jar at my desk! They’re a really unique compote-style which can be served with ice-cream as a desert, on a cheese board, or for breakfast with yoghurt and muesli.
Hill Street: So, there’s no alcohol content left in them after the cooking and bottling process, right?
Laura: Ha ha no, just a delicious whisky flavour and those juicy Tasmanian apricots!
Andre: I’m not sure about mine, there are so many. The coulis, the jams, especially the raspberry, the red pepper relish, the panna cotta…
Q: What do you like most about being a producer in Tasmania?
A: The network and community of businesses we are part of down here. We are in a small island state and we are a part of a community that fosters engagement and interconnectedness. We’re really proud of that here.
Q: What are the challenges?
Freight costs to and from the mainland stand out in particular.
Q: What’s in the future for Island Berries?
A: Growth. We’re about to double the size of our factory with new freezer and refrigeration space. We’re excited about that. We’re also launching our rebranded Island Berries range under the new brand, Island Harvest.
Q: Why the change from Island Berries to Island Harvest?
Island Harvest reflects the broader range of products we make, beyond berries. It’s our sweet, indulgent brand and includes our fruit pastes, our chocolate and caramel sauces, and our coulis, jams and panna cottas, which all go beyond berries these days.
We’ve redesigned all the packaging and taken the opportunity to develop new flavours, like the Tasmanian Gin-Soaked Berry Paste, and the Tasmanian Plum and Pinot Paste, and tweaked our jam labels to reflect the unique varietals we use – like the Moorepark apricots, Loch Ness blackberries and Willamette raspberries – that make our jams one of a kind.
Q: Is there a recipe that you would like to share with our customers?
Laura: I have a really easy go-to dinner recipe using Bill’s Red Pepper Marmalade. It’s a pasta salad. I just fry some chicken pieces, blanch some green beans, cook some spiral pasta, and then stir it all together with a whole jar of Bill’s Red Pepper Marmalade. It’s really fresh and delicious.
Ryan: I love using the panna cottas as a dinner party dessert. With a dusting of icing sugar and a few fresh berries on the side, it’s so good that your guests will think you made it yourself!
Island Harvest products will be on promotion at all Hill Street stores in August and ongoing – check out our Weekly Specials and Catalogue for details.