Richard and Belinda Weston making a mark as only paprika producers in Australia

Richard Weston believes he is the only person in Australia producing paprika.

It is something that he finds hard to fathom, given that since he started growing the spice at his family farm near Brighton, it has proven to be a fruitful endeavour.

Paprika is mostly grown in Spain and Hungary, with the latter location one that Mr Weston says is not too dissimilar from Tasmania.

“It’s way north, has very cold winters but warm summers – much like here,” he said.

“The biggest challenge we find with Tasmania’s climate is the wind, which is why we grow a lot of the stuff under tunnels.

“It’s quite astounding that on face value we are the only paprika growers in Australia.”

Mr Weston said they started growing paprika around 15 years ago.

“We acquired some seed, and we were fortunate enough to get access to a small smokehouse.

“We smoked it, ground it and let other people try it – along with ourselves.

“We compared it to what was commercially available at the time, and we thought ‘gee, that’s not too bad’.

“It’s not terribly scientific, but that’s basically how it evolved.

“We have refined our drying process and how long we smoke it for.

“The paprika is cold smoked at 18C – we find that works best for us.

“We pick the fruit when it is at optimum ripeness – we make sure it’s super ripe.

“So we’ll go through and do a harvest, we’ll smoke and dehydrate it and then put it aside – and then we go back a week or two later and pick again.”

Weston Farm has smoked paprika and hot paprika for sale online and at Pigeon Hole Cafe, which Richard and his wife, Belinda, own.

The paprika has proven to be so popular that demand is starting to outstrip supply.

“We’re just in the process of building another glasshouse, and we’ll put more tunnels in.

“I think there is certainly plenty of room to grow.

“We’re really pleased with how we are going with it, but the demand is something we’re going to have to try and keep up with.”

Mr Weston said Australia imports about $5 million worth of paprika each year.

Next year Mr Weston is planning to go to Hungary.

“I want to go and have a look at their production because I’ve never seen it before.

“I’ve read a lot and studied a lot of it, but I want to go there, learn what they do, and then bring those learnings back here.”