A carob farmer in South Australia's mid-north says he is experiencing a boom in sales to the United States, despite ongoing economic impacts.
The Australian Carob Company in Booborowie has recently secured a contract with a major distributor there which supplies to more than 30,000 stores.
Farmer Michael Jolley said interest is growing in the US due to the carob they are producing.
"We grow the best quality in the world … nice, sweet, quality tasting carob. We're finding over there that they have never tasted anything like what we are producing in Australia," he said.
Carobs are long term trees which take around 10 years to start producing and then about 14 years for a commercial harvest.
Mr Jolley said they started planting back in the year 2000 and he now has 6,000 trees on his property, which he will now focus on increasing inputs.
"The main thing we are expanding is fertilising and watering the trees a lot more because we want to try to increase the amount of carob pods we are producing," he said.
"Especially with getting this new distributor. Our big concern now is trying to keep up with the amount of produce that they will be wanting, so really pushing the trees is our main thing we are concentrating on now."
Mr Jolley said the COVID-19 pandemic has had no effect at all, and if anything he has seen sales keep going up.
"They have gone up a little bit in Australia as well, but in the US it is just booming and they just keep selling out," he said.
"It has really changed the whole set up of our company — of trying to find the markets and trying to find the customers and manufacturers.
"We have got all that going now so we can concentrate on producing more product."
Proving popular in Australia as well
While the chocolate substitute is proving popular in the US, other retailers are finding that many Australians are also enjoying the product.
Trish Mill, the office manager of Carobana Confectionery in New South Wales' Coffs Harbour, said they did not sell overseas anymore, but sold a lot of product through a distributor around Australia.
She said she thought they might have taken a hit with the current conditions, but she has found it to be the opposite.
"Carob is really turning over well at the moment for us, especially the soy carob because it is vegan, and a lot more people are choosing a vegan lifestyle," she said.
Ms Mill said because carob did not contain ingredients such as caffeine and is naturally sweet, people found it did not give them side-effects such as the migraines that cocoa bean chocolate might.
"With our carob, because it is promoted as a healthy alternative, we have gone into health food stores," she said.
"In this COVID crisis people are going into health food stores because they have got the sanitisers and vitamins, etcetera, and then they are purchasing carob as well."
