Muntries
Muntries
Muntries are sweet and have a taste and texture akin to apples and pears. They are small berries that are native to South Australia and Western Victoria. They grow without any internal core or seeds.
Muntries are packed with antioxidants and make a fabulous healthy snack.
Muntries are available fresh in select greengrocers in late Summer and Autumn. They are are also available in frozen and freeze-dried pouches to be enjoyed year round.
Learn more about muntries…
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Muntries can be used like any other berry. They offer a unique burst of flavour with a perfect balance of sweet and spicy notes. They are often compared to a blend of apple and sultanas or blueberries.
Fresh or freeze dried, you can eat muntries as a healthy snack on their own. They are perfect in kid’s lunchboxes.They pair well with cheese on a charcuterie board. You can add them to your morning breakfast bowl with yoghurt & granola, tossed into a smoothie or through a salad.
Cooking with muntries is simple. Their natural sweetness, paired with a touch of tartness, makes them incredibly versatile in the kitchen. Muntries can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes, from jams and desserts to sauces and marinades.
You can substitute any recipe that uses apple or pear with muntries such as an apple pie, a strudel or a tart. Add muntries to your favourite muffin recipe or bake them in tea cake. They can also be pickled or preserved in a light syrup.
Muntries pair well with meats. They lend a deep, earthy taste to lamb, pork, chicken, duck and fish. They are also a popular base for chutneys to serve with meats.Freeze-dried muntrie powder is an excellent flavour addition where you don’t need the whole fruit. It makes a pretty pink colour when swirled through yoghurt or cream or into a smoothie. You can also add the powder into baked goods.
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Fresh, freeze-dried and frozen muntries are virtually identical in their nutritional content and health benefits. All three forms of this unique Australian berry offer a nutrient-rich profile with more protein than blueberries, pears, apples, or grapes.
They also have a low glycemic index (GI), making them a great choice for maintaining stable blood sugar levels.
While freeze-drying preserves the berries’ vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, fresh Muntries offer the same benefits and flavour when consumed.
Whether you choose freeze-dried for convenience or fresh for its immediate texture, you’re getting a powerhouse of nutrition that supports overall wellness and energy.If you want to know more about the nutritional properties of muntries, including comparison with other fruits and native foods, download the articles below.
Sources of Antioxidant Activity in Australian Native Fruits. Identification and Quantification of Anthocyanins. M. Netzel, G. Netzel, A. Tian, S. Schwartz, I. Konczak. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2006, 54, 9820-986
Testing consumer acceptability of new crops: an integrated sensory and marketing approach using muntries, and Australian native berry. C.J. Schultz, A. J. Apps, T.E. Johnson and S.E.P. Bastian. Food Australia. August 2009.
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Muntries (Kunzea pomifera) grow in deep sand. This includes the coastal dunes of Kangaroo Island and the mainland coast between Victor Harbor in South Australia and Warrnambool, Victoria.
Further inland, they are widespread in the sandy areas around Bordertown and Keith and can be found on the roadsides of the Duke Highway. They are common in the central and western parts of Victoria’s Little Desert National Park, and areas further West in South Australia.
As a prostrate plant they are an important soil stabiliser, preventing wind erosion. In spring and late summer/autumn, many birds, mammals and lizards can be observed consuming the flowers and fruit.
Muntries have been a long-time favourite of various First Australian peoples, including the Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri, Narangga, Bindjali and Buandig in South Australia as well as the Wergaia and Gunditjmara in Victoria. They were often traded with other tribes, usually after being pounded into a paste which was then dried. Known aboriginal names include munta, ngerp, nurp, nurt (Boanditj), mantirri (Kaurna), manter (Ngaiawang),
For early European explorers and settlers, muntries presented a rare and welcomed opportunity to add a healthy fresh berry into their limited diets. More recently, muntries are sought after by wild food foragers, including some chefs, naturalists, holiday-makers on bush retreats and children living on rural homesteads.
Farming
Since 2003, Ni-Ni-Well has pioneered regenerative farming methods to cultivate muntries on the very land where they once grew wild; land which is regarded as “infertile” sand, unsuitable for the dominant local farming practices of cropping cereals, legumes and oil seeds (wheat, barley, oats, lentils, canola, etc).
By re-introducing muntries as a perennial crop and allowing other perennial species (grasses) to thrive between the trellises, we have recreated the conditions for diverse soil microbiology to thrive. This is the fundamental goal of regenerative farming since it is the soil microbiology which provides critical nutrients for plants, increases the soil’s ability to store carbon, hold water and fight soil pathogens and weeds without the need for herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilisers.
Our goal is to develop systems that allow muntries to be produced efficiently and at a scale that can stock green grocers around Australia. Our highly connected modern world has allowed Ni-Ni-Well to identify, select and adapt a range of efficient, contemporary, and ecologically compatible horticulture practices. These include:
Wire trellising to make harvesting far easier
Solar powered and remote-controlled irrigation to supplement rainfall when needed
Remote, real-time monitoring of growth rates
Efficient application of organic compost and mulch
Harmless bird deterrent systems that use predator sounds and sunlight reflection.
Ni-Ni-Well works with AgVic (State Government) to assist First Nations communities and corporations seeking to establish native food production enterprises.
Wild Muntries
This video shows muntries growing in the wild in the Little Desert in Western Victoria.
It is difficult to find edible muntries in the wild because native wildlife love them.
Farmed Muntries
In this video Matthew Koop explains how he is growing muntries in their natural habitat to make them available to all Australians to enjoy!
Source: Atlas of Living Australia
Muntries (Kunzea pomifera) grow in areas of deep sand.
This includes the coastal dunes of Kangaroo Island and the mainland coast between Victor Harbor in South Australia and in western Victoria.
We grow muntries in their natural habitat in between the Little Desert and the Big Desert of Western Victoria on traditional Wotjobaluk country.
Where Muntries Grow
Muntries Gallery
A close-up cluster of muntries ready for harvest. Muntries ripen in the warm days of late summer and early autumn.
A tub of harvested muntries, ready for the next step - the cleaning and sorting process.
On the vine, ripe muntries are a vibrant purpley-red colour, but where the sun doesn’t hit, the berries’ skin is light green.
Fresh muntries atop yoghurt and cereal makes for a delicious healthy breakfast.
Our fresh muntries in punnets featured in the Leaf greengrocer located in Melbourne for the 2024 harvest.
Ni-Ni-Well founder Matthew Koop in the early days harvesting muntries at the original hobby farm he set up in the late 1990s.
This image shows flowering muntries.
Our pickers at the start of a day of harvesting. We start harvesting at daybreak, in the cool of the day so that pickers can knock off before it gets too hot.
Tendrils of clusters of muntries ready to be harvested.
This video shows freshly harvested muntries being washed before the drying and sorting process.
Or picker Phil harvesting muntries.
The first step of the cleaning process - winnowing. This technique uses wind to easily remove the leaf litter from the muntries.
Ripe muntries growing on the vines. We train the muntries to grow up a trellis to make them easier to harvest, and we protect them with bird netting.
Muntries washed and spread across drying tables, ready to sort.
Matthew in Leaf after his muntries reached their shelves for the first time.