About a month ago Alpine Berry Farm was invited to attend the Hong Kong Trade Development Council Food Expo and it was at this expo that their gourmet vinegars were exposed to the Asian market.

The expo was attended by Minister for Trade Stuart Ayres and featured a variety of quality international food products. It was the setting for Alpine Berry Farm owners Alyssa and Jonathan Hatcher to enter into negotiations with a company in Guangzhou, China to distribute their homemade vinegars. 

Now, the Hatchers have just sent off their first teaser package of vinegars to China in time for the celebration of autumn harvest. This will be followed by a container load which will be shipped off in mid-October and will hopefully be followed by a monthly container load shipment.

The decision to expand into the Asian market was a conscious one made by 

the family.

“They don’t eat salad in China because until recently there was no refrigeration and salad was just not common so we’ve tried to say that the vinegar could be used as a condiment, for dumplings and noodles,” Mr Hatcher said.

“The Chinese also have it diluted with water as a tonic as they believe vinegar is cooling.”

The family has had interest come in from Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia and hope to expand their exports to these places, which Mr Hatcher said all share the same views on food.

“These are all places where food is medicine and it’s an opportunity to sell and market our product in that way,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of talk about Australia being a food bowl of Asia and this is a huge opportunity we’re trying to take advantage of.”

As their family owned business expands, the 

couple has made the 

decision to make their products offsite and their rustic country kitchen in Alpine has turned into more of a development and test kitchen. 

The exporting business isn’t quite foreign to the Highlands-based farm, as the Hatchers used to export their jams to resorts in the Maldives and other Asian countries.

“We used to export quite a lot with our jams prior to the global financial crisis in 2007, but the dollar went up and exports crashed and now we’re only just getting back into it,” Mrs Hatcher said.

“It’s exciting and we hope it’s very successful.”

Alpine Berry Farm produces six different flavours of vinegar which will be exported, including caramelised raspberry balsamic vinegar, caramelised fig balsamic vinegar, caramelised sour cherry balsamic vinegar, caramelised tomato balsamic vinegar, caramelised tomato and chilli balsamic vinegar, caramelised chilli balsamic vinegar, caramelised mango balsamic vinegar and raspberry white wine vinegar.