logicane

More than $15 million has been invested by private companies and the Queensland and federal governments in research that could lead to the establishment of the world’s first low GI sugar producer as well as the first “healthy chocolate” factory.

Both projects have the enthusiastic endorsement of Premier Peter Beattie, whose government has supported them financially for some years and through several agencies.

Most of the action centres upon the Mossman Central Mill in far north Queensland, the first raw sugar producer in the world to be fully computerised.

Now, more than 35 years later, the spirit of innovation still thrives in this community 72 kilometres north of Cairns.

Researchers are investigating a number of cutting-edge projects at Mossman to ensure the mill’s long term
viability, chief among them being research into the world’s first low GI (glycemic index) sugar, aimed at helping in the fight against obesity and type-two diabetes.

The mill will produce its first low GI sugar this year, with the aim of gearing up to full production in 2008, according to general manager Alan Johnstone.

“We’ll produce a few hundred tonnes this year, maybe a thousand tonnes,” Mr Johnstone said. “Our production in later years will be determined by demand and we’ve had strong expressions of interest in the product from around the world.”

The project is being undertaken in close association with Australia’s Horizon Science, which has developed the process during three years of research at Mossman.

Late last year Horizon Science received a capital injection of $9 million from New Zealand based BioPacific Ventures.

The world’s largest food producer, Nestlé, is a major investor in BioPacificVentures, a $100 million fund specifically set up to provide seed and development capital to cutting edge agricultural ventures in Australia and New Zealand. Another major investor is inventages Venture Capital, a biotechnology venture capital company in which Nestlé is the largest shareholder.

Late last year Horizon Science also received a $3.9 million grant from the Australian Government to take the project to commercial production.

Meanwhile Cocoa Australia Ltd, a subsidiary of Horizon Science, is one of the pioneers in establishing a cocoa growing and processing industry in far north Queensland.

Other cocoa industry research is being undertaken by Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) at South Johnstone and near Mossman funded by one of the world’s largest chocolate makers, Cadbury Schweppes, and the federal government’s Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation.

Both cocoa projects have received financial support totalling more than $596,000 from the Queensland Government.

“Six years down the track, we have established that, from a growing perspective, cocoa does very well in our far north Queensland environment, and that we can get close to three tonnes per hectare of dry beans each year,” said Mr Craig Lemin of the DPI&F cocoa research team.

“By world standards, that is a very high yield and the quality is commercially acceptable, so that gives us confidence to now go out and start some commercial trials.”

Cocoa Australia has established a 1.5 hectare plantation adjacent to the Mossman Mill and other neighbouring farmers also are cultivating this crop. Cocoa Australia director Dr Barry Kitchen estimates that about 20 to 30 hectares need to be planted to cocoa to justify the cost of a chocolate factory.

The mill and the company have formed a joint venture to process cocoa pods into cocoa liquor and powder and then make chocolate with the addition of low GI sugar.

At present Australia imports cocoa products worth about $200 million a year; import replacement enhances the prospects for a new industry that would create jobs and investment in this far northern region of Queensland.