The Queen Garnet plum, hailed by its developers as the world’s latest ‘superfood’, is set to hit retail shelves this season.
The first commercial harvest of the new stonefruit variety is underway at the Good Rich Food Company’s orchard in Queensland, Australia, with a yield 200 tonnes forecast.
This figure expected to rise over coming seasons as more production at the 75,000 tree orchard comes online.
Researchers at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) believe Queen Garnets have up to five times the levels of anthocyanins as normal plums, making them effective anti-inflammatory agents.
“Obesity is a chronic, low intensity inflammatory disorder,” USQ Biomedical Sciences Professor Lindsay Brown said.
“Our laboratory fed a number of rats a high carbohydrate, high fat diet leading them to gain abdominal weight and develop health concerns such as high blood pressure, fatty liver and problems in controlling blood sugar concentrations.We then intervened with the purple plum juice which began to reverse those problems.”
Queensland’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) developed the Queen Garnet variety, in collaboration with USQ and the Good Rich Food Company.
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