Truffles, those sought-after gourmet delicacies, are being harvested on South African farms from KwaZulu-Natal to Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape — with a bit of help from man’s best friend.
The underground fungi, native to southern Europe, are prized for their intense, earthy flavours. Their lumpy, warty exteriors might not look appealing, but they sell for between R12,000/kg and R26,000/kg. Ask for some to be grated over your pasta dish or omelette in a restaurant, and the 4g-5g treat will add R100 or more to the bill.
Truffles have been on the menu since ancient times. During the Renaissance they became integral to French and Italian cuisine, and truffle hunters recruited pigs and dogs to sniff them out.
Whether for profit or as a hobby, truffle farming is a long haul, requiring infinite patience and significant upfront investment.
Donna Hornby was among the first to bring truffles to South Africa, in the mid-2000s. “We were living in Lions River in KZN on a smallholding of about 8ha that was mainly wetland, and I was trying to find some agricultural enterprise that I could do,” says Hornby.
Her husband, Yves Vanderhaeghen, suggested she try truffles. Hornby went online and discovered that in certain parts of the country truffle-growing was possible.
Encourged by Alan Manson at the Cedara agricultural college, she connected with French truffle farmer Dominique Martino, who said: “Of course you can grow truffles.” He agreed to supply truffle spore, the microscopic reproductive cells that are used to inoculate the roots of oak trees, on which truffles grow in a symbiotic partnership.
Unlike white truffles (Tuber magnatum), which generally grow naturally in forests and are rarely cultivated, farming of black truffles (Tuber melanosporum) has taken off in a big way, including in Australia, which has become one of the largest producers in the world.
Hornby’s first 10kg of black truffles arrived from France in a cooler box. The smell was overwhelming, she says. The cost at the time was about R15,000/kg. Hornby and her husband established a company, Truffles of Africa, in 2007. Hornby flew a truffle farmer in from Tasmania to guide her through the inoculation process.
Shirley and Ashley Head, of Khaya Lethu Truffles in Wakkerstroom, Mpumalanga, bought trees from Hornby. They were renovating a derelict farmhouse when Ashley found an article on truffles in an old copy of Farmer’s Weekly. “We’ve got the land; let’s go for it,” he recalls saying.
“Seven of us started together,” Shirley tells the FM. “Some have fallen by the wayside.”
Other truffle enthusiasts are Rob and Trish Kemp, who established their Bellvue truffle farm near Underberg in the shadow of the Drakensberg 12 years ago. Rob has since attended a truffle-growing workshop at a specialised consultancy in Valencia, Spain, called MicoLab.
The Kemps planted 1,400 oaks, and six years later unearthed their first truffle harvest. “We’ve written a book on our experiences — The Story of an African Truffle Farm,” says Kemp. He and Trish became interested in truffles after watching cooking programmes on TV.
Shirley, that’s most definitely a truffle, and a really good-sized one. Your dog has been eating them all along!
— Donna Hornby
Truffles thrive in cold weather and require high alkalinity. For the Heads, that meant trucking in 70t of lime from Joburg to mix with their soil. They planted 400 trees on 1ha of land and, on the advice of a truffle farmer they met in Croatia, waited 11 years for the fungi to develop.
When their dog started impatiently demanding to be let out at dawn so he could make a beeline for the oak orchard, they went to investigate, and retrieved a nondescript, wrinkled black lump.
Hornby describes how Shirley Head called to ask if what she had found was a truffle. Hornby told her to cut it open and have a look. “I said, ‘Shirley, that’s most definitely a truffle, and a really good-sized one. Your dog has been eating them all along!’”
An Italian breed of retriever, the lagotto Romagnolo, has become the favourite breed to use for truffle hunting because of its eagerness to learn and to work, but almost any dog with a strong bond with its owners, from a Jack Russell and up, can do the job. The Heads have springer spaniels, and the Kemps use a labradoodle (a cross between a labrador and a poodle).
“The dogs go out, start sniffing around and detect the aroma of the truffle. They have to be trained to indicate,” says Shirley Head.
Volker Miros, who describes himself as South Africa’s “truffle guru”, launched Woodford Truffles in 2005. The company produces inoculated oaks and enters into joint ventures with farmers in suitable climate zones who want to try a new, potentially lucrative crop.
“We are the technology partner, and the farmer does the farming,” says Miros’s son, Paul. He has a lagotto Romagnolo that likes to keep busy. “He is always looking at me and waiting for a command,” Paul says.
Woodford’s first harvest of black Périgord truffles was in 2012. Its joint venture partners have planted truffle oaks on just over 100ha, primarily in mountainous areas of the Western Cape such as the Cederberg and the Outeniqua range, but also in KZN.
All Woodford truffles are sold to restaurants and private buyers in South Africa. “They are on pre-order and pretty much sold before they come out of the ground,” says Paul Miros. Woodford supplies high-end restaurants such as Fyn and La Colombe in Cape Town and Joburg’s Saxon Hotel.
The Heads send their truffles to Wild Peacock, a fine-food emporium in Cape Town, which does their marketing.
Kemp says he has potential buyers in Europe, the UAE and UK, but doesn’t produce enough for export yet. He supplies high-end restaurants on the KZN South Coast and elsewhere.
One of his clients is Shaun Gray, head chef at Speirs Brasserie in the village of Himeville. “Rob did me a pretty good deal,” Gray says. “I use truffles wisely, obviously. A little goes a long way, is the general rule of thumb.”
At his restaurant, you can expect truffle-infused egg dishes, truffle butter and truffle-porcini croquettes.
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