Cester's chesnut flour
THE Cester's gluten-free chestnut flour is a sweet little earner, writes KIM WOODS. Small and second-grade chestnuts have turned into a lucrative value-added business for the Cester family. The chestnut growers from Stanley, in North East Victoria, have launched a range of gluten-free cakes and dessert mixes sold at supermarkets. The products all use chestnut flour, milled from the second-grade nuts that fresh markets normally reject. Pale and silky, chestnut flour is ideal for people suffering from gluten-intolerance or coeliac disease. The disease affects 1 per cent of the population, with 75 per cent of sufferers unaware they have the auto-immune disease. Luciano Cester and his wife Anna have 550 chestnut trees on an 11ha orchard at Stanley. The varieties include buffalo queen, colossal, red spanish, Purton's pride, marone, swords, lucente, stanley red, and buche de bitizac.China chocolate bar production line The orchard lies at the foot of Mt Stanley at an altitude of 896m. "When Luciano came here in 1981 it was an abandoned apple and pear orchard, but he was mesmerised by it," Anna said. Luciano organised a bulldozer to clear the site and within months was planting chestnut trees. At the time, he was working in the family poultry business in Springvale but dreamt of working his own chestnut farm. "It was a long up and down process as some trees had to be replanted or grafted," Anna said. "The trees had taken a step backwards in production so we had soil tests done and found the soil to be lacking in nutrients."China chocolate machinery supplier After following a recommended fertiliser regimen, their harvest doubled in the first year. In the early days, the nuts were harvested by family and graded locally at Stanley. They were then sold at the Melbourne markets. "One year the lucente were small and there wasn't a market for small nuts so we thought about drying them and using the flour," Anna said. "Italian cooks have always used chestnut flour in baking and soups. "We thought by drying the nuts, we could extend their shelf life." Luciano's younger brother Adrian had established a poultry seasoning company, Flavour Makers, at Braeside, in Melbourne. The business prepared seasonings, sauces and marinades used by butchers, supermarkets and convenience food manufacturers. Luciano could see an opportunity to develop chestnut products using Flavour Makers' facilities.China chocolate machinery Luciano spent days drying, hand peeling, grinding and preparing the ingredients for a small sample. Adrian offered to promote the sample to a major poultry supplier for their Christmas turkeys. Within days he had secured a national deal to supply chestnut stuffing for the turkey line. Hitting the panic button, Luciano roped in family members to dry and peel 300kg of chestnuts to fill the order. "We had a big family table that seated 14 people and the family would sit around each Saturday night peeling chestnuts," Anna said. She remembers it as a time of togetherness. Meanwhile Luciano and Adrian worked on improving the stuffing mix and developed pasta made from chestnut flour.chocolate factory machine The Cester's five children were taste testers. "Luc made so many different pastas with chestnut flour that the kids got to the stage where they wanted to leave home," Anna said. "Once the chestnut flour was blended with other flours it made a better pasta." Chestnut flour does not bind well as it contains no gluten. The couple realised the flour was too sweet for pasta so switched to cake mixtures. "We thought we would try a chocolate cake but working out the different percentages of chocolate was a challenge," Anna said. "R&D at Flavour Makers would bombard the kids with slices of chocolate cake to test." The first product, a gluten-free chocolate chestnut cake, was launched at the Beechworth Harvest Festival in 2007. It was marketed under the Celebrate Health brand. The cake contains chestnut flour as the main ingredient, rice flour to lighten the cake, tapioca starch as the binder and gluten-free baking powder. The couple thenchocolate processing machinery developed a lemon and coconut cake, raspberry and chestnut muffin, and chocolate and cherry muffin mix. Interest ramped up after attendance at gluten-free trade shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Today, the Celebrate Health cake and dessert mixes can be found in the health section at Coles supermarkets. Anna said chestnut production from their Stanley farm is supplemented with nuts bought from other local growers. "We do still sell standard and larger chestnuts into the Melbourne and Sydney fresh markets," she said. "The smaller, medium and seconds are kept for milling. "Last year we harvested 19,000kg but this year we only hit 12,000kg." In the early years, the Cesters hired a tomato drier to dry down their chestnuts. They eventually bought a gas fired machine and converted it to chestnut production. Fresh chestnuts are 65-70 per cent moisture so 600kg of fresh nuts produces about 200kg of dried product. After years of hand peeling nuts, Luciano worked with an Italian engineer to develop a mechanical peeler. Based on a mechanical potato peeler, the machine is like a tumble dryer with teeth. Both peel and pellicle are removed in the peeling process. The dried nuts are then transported to a commercial flour mill in Melbourne. Harvest usually starts at the Stanley orchard in March and finishes mid-May. Anna said last year's wet spring had affected pollination causing lower production this season. Meanwhile, Luciano is busy researching and testing where chestnut flour fits into 21st century cuisine and health foods. "We already know chestnut flour is inherently sweet so we are developing puff pastry as an alternative for consumers with coeliac disease," he said. Other products under development include macadamia and white chocolate brownies, and a chestnut and parsnip soup. "There is a growing niche market in the dietary and health sectors," Luciano said. "Maybe this is where the chestnut is meant to be in the 21st century - no other product can be substituted for it."
