Natoora

Order Your Natoora x Hagen's Peak Season Box HERE 

Farmers: Various

Location: Collingwood, Victoria

Produce: Everyday Fruit & Veg Box, Seasonal Peak Box

Principles:Flavour-First Agriculture, Seasonal, Soil Health

Website: https://natoora.com/en-AU/

Natoora was founded by Franco Fubini in 2004 in a bid to restore flavour, transparency and seasonality to a broken food system. In  2022, Franco and Kim Driver joined forces to bring Natoora to Melbourne, connecting restaurants and home chefs with Australia’s most flavour-led growers.

Featured Peak Box Grower -Organic Darwin River Region Mangoes from Darren and Mike.

This year, Natoora is working directly with Mike who has developed an organic co-op based in Humpty Doo, Northern Territories. During the dry season, he runs his own spray-free farm and in the wet season, sources hard to find, tropical fruit varieties from small, local and flavour-first growers.

Mango production in this part of Australia is big business. The majority of growers are more yield than flavour driven, resulting in mangoes picked under ripe and prioritised for long distance transport with trees that are overstressed and soils that are degrading.

Mike works closely with Darren, an organic mango grower in the Darwin River region. His chemical-free and soil focused growing methods result in smaller harvests but with fruit that is dense and concentrated. A mango picked unripe will be stringy and lack a depth of flavour whereas Darren’s mangos, which are picked two weeks later than conventional growers in his area, have a smooth and custard-like texture while busting with natural sweetness and balanced acidity.

During the Northern Territory season, which is October through December, Natoora sources all their mangoes directly from Mike and Darren’s organic farms. From there, they will shift to a variety of Queensland growers, then in February head south to Gabby’s Victorian mangoes for the remaining four weeks of the season.

Enjoy Darren’s Kensington Pride mangoes in the November Peak Season Box.