ONCE known for its fruit-salad blocks and an abundance of stonefruit, you can now count the Riverland’s apricot growers on one hand.

While the prospect of being Australia’s largest private apricot growers could be daunting, for the Quirke siblings Josh, 33, Dan, 31, and Abigail, 29, it is what gets them up in the morning.

The trio decided about seven years ago that apricots were their passion and since then, have value-added their own chocolate-coated apricots pieces, and continue to supply the dried fruit market, both in bulk sales and under their own Quirkeycots label.

“It started off as a bit of a side hobby,” Josh said.

“We knew we couldn’t grow and market almonds, citrus or winegrapes how we wanted, but saw a great opportunity to do so with apricots. 

“That’s where it stemmed from.”

Wanting to continue their father’s fruit-growing legacy, each sibling started out with about three acres, planting their patches using funds from their normal day jobs.

Now, the Quirkes have 83 acres and 27 different varieties.

“It’s been a huge amount of work,” Josh said.

The Quirkes faced plenty of criticism and doubts when planting acres of apricots at a time when most growers were pulling them out.

I’ve been told by people, ‘I don’t think you could be making a bigger mistake than planting apricots’,” Abigail said.

“We’ve had a number of banks tell us to come back in four years for finance.”

However, Josh said he believes the “scary stage” is now behind them. 

“I think that was one or two years ago,” he said.

Although Covid-19 continues to be an ever-arising issue for the harvest period, they remain upbeat.

“We are at an exciting stage now with all trees in production,” Josh said.

The Quirke family has a long history in Loxton as growers, with three generations, and marking 100 years of drying fruit in South Australia.

Josh said the Riverland is perfect for growing apricots.

“It’s like the Champagne region in France for Champagne,” he said.

It just works well with the weather, the climate, the soil type. There’s just something about it.

“You can’t get an apricot that tastes the same as our Australian apricot anywhere in the world.”

Josh said the key was growing suitable varieties, with the Quirkes assisted by Darren Graetz at the Loxton Research Centre.

“He’d be the best apricot breeder in the world and we are very fortunate,” he said.

“Without him, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.”

The key to the Quirkeycots success is three very different skill sets and personalities, according to Abigail.

“Dan has a production mind and he will build and fix absolutely anything,” she said.

“Josh is the orchard guy and knows every little characteristic about each variety. 

“Anything to know, he knows it.”

Meanwhile Abigail works in the marketing and distribution side of the business.

“We all work in together, but we all have our own fortes,” she said.

Josh said the trio steered away from the fresh-fruit market and decided to focus on dried sales only.

“We didn’t want someone dictating their terms about buying our fruit and only having a set amount of time to sell it,” he said.

“If we don’t like the price we’re getting or if someone won’t pay us the price, we can sell the dried fruit elsewhere without worrying about it spoiling, past its best. 

“We have the ability to find a new buyer, whereas with fresh fruit you don’t have that time.”

Natural progression for Quirkes

IF you mix three generations of dried apricot growers and a chocolate-loving family together, the result is Quirkeychocs.

Siblings Josh and Dan Quirke and Abigail Lory (nee Quirke) are self-confessed “connoisseurs of chocolate” and about 15 per cent of their business is Quirkeychoc sales.

“Currently, we could make more chocs, but it is lack of time at the moment,” Abigail said.

“I would say currently, we do 85 per cent dried fruit and 15 per cent chocs.

“Of the 85 per cent, I would say 65 per cent is bulk sales to other distributors and brands and the remainder is in our Quirkeycots packets.”

Quirkeychocs and Quirkeycots are sold in a number of retailers Australia-wide, after the label was launched in 2015.

The apricots are picked and dried using local employees, then graded for dried fruit sales or Quirkeychocs.

Once the graded apricot product is minced and balled, it is sent to an Adelaide-based chocolatier.

“What sets us apart from all other apricot manufactured products is our use of pure Australian dried apricot centres,” Abigail said.

“There’s no citric acid, no sugar, no molasses, no corn syrup and no imported fruit. 

It is pure, unaltered dried apricot. 

“It’s all about the natural product and letting that speak for itself.”

With recent hail storms fresh in stonefruit growers’ minds, Josh said the dried fruit path was also about “storm proofing” the business.

“There’s a certain percentage of crop that is always going to be small, always going to have a mark on it or be overripe,” he said.

“If you get a hailstorm come through, generally speaking, it will come through on one side, so one part of the apricot has a mark, while the other half is good.

“We can then grade out the good and with the marked side make Quirkeychocs. 

“It still tastes phenomenal.”