FALL 2019 41
producer profile
LEE
ETHERINGTON,
CO-FOUNDER,
MANAGING
DIRECTOR
Age:
42
Years
in
specialty
food:
21
Favorite
food:
Poached
eggs
from
my
daughter's
hens
served
on
my
wife's
sourdough
sprinkled
with
Bush
Tomato
&
Mountain
Pepper
Seasoning.
The
bush
tomatoes
are
picked
by
an
Aboriginal
tribe
for
me
out
in
the
desert,
and
I
grow
some
of
the
mountain
pepper
on
my
farm.
Least
favorite
food:
Oily
fish.
I
wish
I
loved
salmon;
it
is
the
most
beautiful
thing.
I
try
it
again
and
again,
but
I
just
hate
it.
Last
thing
I
ate
and
loved:
Granola,
yogurt,
and
fruit
with
a
bit
of
honey
from
my
apiary.
If
I
weren't
in
the
food
business
I'd
be:
In
a
lab.
I
love
doing
research
and
am
fascinated
by
cell
walls
and
membranes.
Funnily
enough,
it
was
this
passion
that
made
me
good
at
preserving
food.
If
you
can
maintain
cell
structures
and
walls,
then
preserved
food
can
be
better
than
fresh.
We
opened
a
nine-year-old
bottle
of
hibiscus
flowers
in
syrup
on
my
daughter's
ninth
birthday
and
they
were
still
very
red
and
tasty.
One
piece
of
advice
I'd
give
to
a
new
food
business:
#1:
Bootstrapping.
#2:
Be
sure
your
products
make
other
people
money.
That's
how
you
get
distribution.
Lime Marmalade and Macadamia Nut &
Plum Swirl. Lee's two brothers manage
production. Overall the company produces
a range of more than 60 products from
native Australian ingredients, exporting to
57 countries. Roughly 20 SKUs are sold in
the United States.
To ramp up production of hibiscus
f lowers preserved in syrup, Lee looked into
opposite climate zones that could provide
another growing season. In 2004, he headed
off to Malaysia and found a business part-
ner, gained the trust of small-lot farmers,
funded an irrigation system for them, and
helped build a factory. He said he did it all
on credit cards and from pouring the profits
they made back into the company.
Lee's time in Malaysia showed him
"first-hand the very real difference hibis-
cus can make in developing countries," he
says. "Farmers could get a return on grow-
