Solarfruit

Solarfruit began with a family recipe for sun-dried fruit bars and a trip around Australia. Sue and Steve Collis say the bars went down so well on the road that in 1994 they went looking for fruit-growing country in the south of Western Australia. Late that year they moved to Donnybrook and started making them.

The method is slow, and most of it happens in the open air. Stonefruit grown in the hills around Donnybrook is picked by hand when it's ripe, then checked, washed and pulped. The pulp isn't cooked: it's spread on trays and dried outside in the sun for about ten days, on drying tables the couple designed themselves. They came up with their own pit-removal equipment too.

What comes off the trays is a sheet of dried fruit. Cut up, it becomes bars and platter pieces. Rolled whole, it's the Giant Roll, about 35 cm long. Softened and rolled in coconut, cane sugar or dark chocolate, it becomes bite-sized pieces. The fruit changes through the season, so colour and texture vary a little from batch to batch, and the maker adds no colours or flavours. The label lists a preservative, E224.

In 2014 the apricot and nectarine platter pieces won a silver and a bronze at the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards. The range also takes in jams made with half fruit and half sugar, a fruit sauce, and raw honey from a Flow Hive on the family's property.

Order from the maker's online shop, which posts by Australia Post with tracking. The factory shop is on Wade Road at Brookhampton, about 6 km from the Donnybrook town centre, and opens on set weekdays; check the maker's contact page for days and closures before you go. Solarfruit also has a regular stall at the Boyanup Farmers Market, held on the fourth Sunday of the month, and the maker lists its market days and where it's sold on its own site.