“One of the things that I missed after migrating to Australia was the sweet taste of juicy Indian mango – and the variety,” Sunil Barbhai of Sydney told SBS Hindi.
Sunil Barbhai and Vineet Pasarnikar of, an import house based in Sydney, which specializes in Mahrashtrian food are excited about a news.
Now, Indian-Australians can expect to see mangoes from India in their nearest supermarket.
Sunil Barbhai Source: Sunil Barbhai
Over the years a number of Indian businesses involved in import of Indian food products for local grocery stores have finally got permission to import the king of all fruits – mango - this season, reports the .
Recently revised procedures have opened the door for Indian imports.
Sunil says “The condition is that mango will be allowed into Australia as long as it has been treated with irradiation prior to export.”
He adds that “the imported Indian mangoes will meet with the Australian biosecurity standards and not bringing in any pests or diseases.”
This is not the first time that Australia has imported mangoes.
“Earlier, mangoes have come from Mexico, the Philippines and Pakistan,” Sunil adds.
Sunil says that s far as he knows the experience of Pakistani importer was not good.
India has already started exporting mangoes to the United States of America.
Robert Gray from the Australian Mango Industry Association told ABC News that India may import same quantity to Australia.
"India is currently trying to ship 200 to 300 tonne of mangoes to the US a year, and it would be those sorts of volumes at a maximum [to Australia] I would expect."
Chief Executive of , Kaushal Khakhar, told that they want to import two varities of mango.
“The company would initially focus on exporting the Alphonso and Kesar varieties. As Alphonso is slightly tricky but handled well it is one of the best varieties in India."
Sunil says that “Alphonso and Kesar are the best commercial variety from India.”
“They have good flavour, lots of juice and easy to transport long distances in safe conditions," he adds.
Sunil believes that at this stage only small importers are involved and the big players - importers for supermarket giants - are right now just watching if this is a success or not.
To know more about the import of Indian mangoes to Australia, listen to Amit Sarwal’s conversation with Sunil Barbhai.
