Kurrajong Native Foods is the creation of Lee Etherington, a passionate naturalist & Foodie who has grown up exploring Australia’s Deserts, Rainforests and Woodlands. Having experienced Native Foods from an early age, & having a passion for cooking and unique foods it was a natural progression for Lee to start experimenting with Australia’s many bushfoods.

The business grew from humble beginnings, in his mother’s kitchen toiling over the first batch of 1.5 litres of Lilli Pilli Conserve after picking and deseeding the berries from the forest behind his home, Lee initially gave the jam away as a promotion for his adventure-tour company based in the Blue Mountains north-west of Sydney.

Right: Erin hand labelling a batch of Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup in the early days.

People were soon calling back asking to buy some more of that first delicious creation so he started selling it for a price that people were willing to pay. Before long people were walking out with $100 of Kurrajong Native Foods products. Little did Lee know that in one years time he would be toiling over a much bigger pot for much more time, creating hundreds of litres of Lilli Pilli Conserve and thousands of jars for distribution all over the country, handling his first export orders & managing 50 other products, many of which are more popular than his first Lilli Pilli Conserve.

Kurrajong Native Foods now has several commercial plantations and contract purchases whole crops of specialist growers native fruits, nuts, herbs and spices from all over the country.

Above Right is a picture of one of our plantations of Wild Hibiscus Flowers stretching as far as the eye can see!

Kurrajong Native Foods comissioned a new, purpose built factory on January 7th 2008, a huge leap forward for us and also for the native foods industry.

You can visit our flagship products website at www.wildhibiscus.com Here you can also order for delivery within the USA but only of our Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup.

Through the years there have been many temptations to change the way we do things, to outsource or mechanise our production or to compromise on the high percentage weight of the very rarest fruits we use to make our products. Lee has flatly rejected all of this and we do not compromise on the quality of our products. Our primary focus is to produce the highest quality native foods and to support the very few people who can supply our ingredients in quantity.

Lee has been asked many times why products such as our Quandong Jam is $9 when there is others available for $4 or $5. The answer is in the tasting! To compare with one Victorian company, their 'Quandong' jam actually contains only 3% Quandong! Ours is made up of 38% Quandong and 11% Buderim Ginger. The bulk of our competitors product is made up of peach & apricot puree and orange juice! When you consider that Quandong costs us around $45 per kg you start to understand. But the real difference is in the tasting, you will not buy that 3% jam again but when you taste the unique rich & spicy fruitness of Kurrajong Native Foods Quandong jam, you will buy it again and again and that is quite simply the story of our success!

We have a reputation in the industry as the producer of the highest quality native foods but more importantly for our long term prosperity, we are the preferred buyer to deal with amongst the farmers who grow native foods. This is because we always pay the best prices for the best fruit, we have integrity, we buy what we say we will buy and we always pay on time.

So when you purchase our products you can be assured that you are supporting an ethical business that looks after its suppliers. You are also getting the best quality native fruit products on the market & they genuinely are hand made.

If you would like to find out more about us please contact Lee Etherington via;

Kurrajong Australian Native Foods

Unit 1&2 Industry Rd

McGraths Hill

NSW, 2756

P: 61 (0)2 4577 8711

F: 61 (0)2 4577 8722

E: wow@bushtuckershop.com