Dirty little secrets

The truffle business

John McCombe

Jeff Weston and his truffle hound Hugo unearth bianchetto.

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The truffle industry is slowly but surely bearing fruit for Canterbury growers, but it's a risky business. With truffles fetching $3000/kg or more, however, some would say it's worth the wait.

The pungent aroma of the truffle drives everyone crazy, from pigs to top chefs. But what's all the fuss about? Why does this funky-looking fungus fetch $5000 a kilogram? Kate Preece unearths a few secrets. 

"Seek, Casper," the dog's owners encourage, prompting the blue heeler to go rigid, with his nose high in the air. A turbo-charged survey of the garden ensues. Before long, he stops and paws the ground just once, marking the spot of the hidden treasure - a prize piece of truffle.

In this instance, the truffle hunt was merely a demonstration, with nothing but a frozen chunk of truffle to find. Nevertheless, Casper has earned a meaty treat. This is how Gavin and Anne Hulley, part-owners of GGC Truffles, trained their truffle hound, at first using gorgonzola, which has a similar potency to truffle.

For truffle growers, though, the appeal of the knobbly, ugly fungus is by no means its smell. The 150 truffières (truffle plantations) around New Zealand have been established in the hope that their trees will produce one of the most valuable crops in the world.

In Europe, the price for the Périgold black truffle or Tuber melanosporum varies between NZ$1500 and $2500 a kilogram, according to Gavin. The Italian white truffle or Tuber magnatum is $5000 a kilogram, "but they haven't managed to cultivate that, or grow it commercially yet". Other varieties, such as bianchetto or Tuber borchii, are $500 to $1000 a kilogram.

Considering truffières have the potential to produce as much as 200kg/hectare, it's little wonder New Zealand is after a piece of the truffle pie. However, we weren't even in the game until truffles piqued the interest of Dunedin-based mycologist Dr Ian Hall.

Until 30 years ago, the truffle was a wild product, prolific in the forests of France and Italy. In 1979, Ian learnt the French had successfully harvested the first truffle from a cultivated truffière. He figured New Zealand could easily follow suit and set himself to the task.

Trees with truffle fungi on their roots couldn't be sent by plane - not without a scene out of Border Patrol - it took some lateral and intelligent thinking on Ian's behalf. Much scientific experimentation later, the first seedlings were successfully infected with Périgold black truffle in New Zealand. By 1993, his brother's Gisborne truffière had harvested the southern hemisphere's first Périgold black truffle.

As a youngster, Jeff Weston had gathered mushrooms around the Port Hills and even tried to grow fungi himself. When he stumbled upon one of Ian's articles and attended New Zealand's second annual edible fungi conference in 2000, his interest flared. Jeff had just shifted his family to West Melton and had always wanted a horticultural business; truffles became the fungi of choice. In 2002, he became a trufficulteur, a professional truffle grower.

Jeff, also a landscape architect, opted for bianchetto truffle, a variety that was yet to be commercially cultivated in the southern hemisphere.

"We liked the idea of being pioneers, really. It's much more exciting and challenging."

Jeff's patience paid off. His trees, a mixture of oaks, hazels and pines, produced the first truffle just over a year ago.

*Read more in the August issue of Avenues*