Director of the Achacha Fruit Group, Bruce Hill, worked for five years in Uruguay as a director on the Australia-Latin America Business Council and came across the fruit while on a study of sugarcane-cutting equipment in Bolivia.

Impressed with the fruit, he imported 1kg of achacha to Australia, where he was told by fruiterers that the fruit not only looked good and tasted great, but it had a long shelf life.

The achacha does not ripen further after being picked and will last a week or more without refrigeration.

Bruce's original intention was to import the fruit, but product output in Bolivia was not great enough, so he decided to form the Achacha Fruit Group and establish orchards here in Australia.

Ross Oliveri, Giru, volun-teered his farm for the trial orchard and 3000 trees were planted from imported seed in 2002. In January/February this year, 10t of achacha were har-vested and marketed in Sydney, selling out in a short time.

Achacha are an egg-sized fruit up to 6cm long and 4cm in diameter and are related to the mangosteen family of fruits, but are not as sweet as the mango-steen. The trees take just seven years to fruit, compared to the 12 years for mangosteen. They are now being viewed as a replace-ment for mangosteen. There is usually one significant coffee-coloured seed, but larger fruit may have more than one seed.

Achacha is an eco-friendly rainforest fruit which has not been subjected to generations of selective breeding to perfect its visual appeal. Consequently, it may have small bumps and marks on its skin, which do not affect its quality.

There is also a refreshing drink made from the skin of the achacha which has traditionally been used by Bolivians as a hunger suppressant.

International chefs in Sydney were impressed enough to create several new deserts from the achacha, and there has been a great deal of interest from south-east Asian countries, which will now be the target of an export industry for the fruit.

l Contact Bruce Hill at bhill@achcha.com.au or cor-porate development officer Trent Koch at tkoch@achacha. com.au

In addition it is expected that sorbets, drinks, jams, pastes and other foodstuffs will be developed from the Achacha, each leading to significant businesses on their own; already these products have been made and tested successfully on a small scale.