GRANGE Garlic, a commercial garlic producing family business based at Penshurst just 20 minutes east of Hamilton, is going great guns.

One of several producers presenting at Sheepvention 2023’s Kitchen Stage, this fledgling local business supplies fresh whole and minced garlic to retail outlets, food services, processing and wholesale markets.

After seven long years of R&D, farmer and founder Wayne Schild is proud of not just his all-Australian product but also the renewable packaging it comes in.

From managing seed production to broadacre sowing and harvesting, storage and curing, food processing and packaging, sales, warehousing and distribution, Mr Schild and his family are the powerhouse behind it all.

And with Grange Garlic’s purpose-built state of the art facility finally in full operation, employing all levels of local expertise from tractor drivers to food scientists, they can now completely control and track the quality of product from paddock to plate, Mr Schild said.

He claims his minced garlic is “an Australian first”. 

“It is a world-first product and it’s coming out of here,” he said. “The only other way to get wet minced garlic is through the dehydrated and imported Chinese product. They completely control the world supply. But I thought, why would you dehydrate it just to rehydrate it?”

So, he started experimenting, and “walked straight into the chemistry of what natural garlic is”.

“The raw, natural product (of minced Grange Garlic) is made up of 97 per cent pure Australian garlic and 3 per cent Australian lemon juice,” he said. “That’s it. No preservatives; a 12-month shelf life; unrefined, untreated and naturally preserved.”

It also has a magic ingredient: allicin – the oily, slightly yellow liquid in garlic which gives it its distinctive taste and odour. Many people believe it has a positive effect on gut bacteria and the liver, and allicin is also thought to ease inflammation.

Dr Jane Manning, immunologist and microbiologist for Grange Garlic, said scientists have been interested in allicin since 1944 when it was first discovered and found to have antibiotic properties.

“But this was around the same time penicillin was being harnessed as an antibiotic and garlic was much less potent. But we know that allicin is able to inhibit or kill various types of viruses and fungi, and now, with an increase in antibiotic resistance, research into garlic and other antimicrobial molecules has really come back in.”

Fresh minced garlic is also quite different to rehydrated minced garlic, Dr Manning said. With the high temperatures required in the dehydration process there will always be a loss of some of the molecules and efficiency of the garlic, she said. But with fresh Grange Garlic you’re getting all of garlic’s natural properties, she added.

The road to find the allicin was “long and hard and there were many setbacks”, Mr Schild said.

“It was so complex to find, but we’ve come up with a way to it that no one else has. But the number one barrier of entry for this business was seed; there was none, and you can’t import it and it’s a very slow annual multiplier. It’s incredibly complex.

“It’s also fiddly to peel, very aromatic (a polite way of saying pungent!) and expensive to buy as cloves, so we’ve commercialised it and literally peeled and chopped it for you.

“We have unanimous product validation because everyone who buys it loves it so much they buy it again and again.

“They’re customers for life.”