In late November, Pat Torres from Mayi Harvest representing the NAAKPA Steering Committee visited the laboratories of Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) at Lucas Heights.

The visit was to present NAAKPA’s story to ANSTO’s research teams as well as for ANSTO to provide an overview of their isotopic fingerprinting technology.  Previously, ANSTO completed elemental testing on Kakadu plum samples from Western Australia as a proof of concept to demonstrate the technology and algorithms developed by ANSTO can be used in the bushfoods industry. The tour included visiting the ITRAX xray machine, isotopic spectrometers, proton accelerating ion beam as well as the neutron beam facility. These technologies can identify unique signatures in fruit and fruit derivatives and allow consumers to identify exactly where a sample of Kakadu Plum comes from- whether an Aboriginal owned enterprise or from another source.  Peter Cooley (CEO) from First Hand Solutions, Michael Davis (Agribusines) and Paul Saeki (KPBDM) from ILSC, as well as Mike Robinson and Daniel Havers from SAI Global also attended the visit.