We recently bought the Lemon Myrtle Fragrances business from Roger and Eileen when they decided to retire after many years of farming around northern NSW. Roger is one of the original pioneers of the Australian Lemon Myrtle Industry and has contributed to the development and promotion of the natural therapeutic qualities of Lemon Myrtle. We asked Roger and Eileen if they would kindly write a piece about their experiences and here it is.
“About 18 years ago our family was incouraged to plant lemon myrtle trees as an extra income, the idea was to plant enough trees to be able to distill the oil from the plants and sell the oil as there looked like being a good market for futre lemon myrtle oil, as lemon myrtle trees are a native to ouir area we knew they would grow well. At that time some of our family had some spare ground that they didn't know what to do with so I come across this idea and suggested we put this ground to use, so together our two families planted 10,000 lemon myrtle trees in plantation. Other farmers in our area were incouraged to join in this new industry and developed plantations.
As the plantation developed and the trees were big enough to harvest and distill for essential oil we bought a distillation plant. As time went by things were not as good a it was made out to be with the oil market and it was obvious that we had to do some thing else with the plantation for it to be viable.
I came up with an idea to get some lemon myrtle soap made using some oil that we had distilled.
We took the soap to a boot market in Lismore to see what people thought of our soap and were amazed at people's response and the nice remarks that people made and it was at that point that we new that we were on the right track and from that point on we never looked back.
Our family then developed a registered business name and formed a Company and started to develop a few other products using lemon myrtle oil as the key fragrance.We found a manufacturer that was capable of producing and formulating new lemon myrtle products that were plant derived and natural and free of chemical and healthy for family use. Together we put together an image and a logo and art work for labels for the future and the business name of Lemon Myrtle Fragrances was developed..
As the business grew we found Distributors in every state to sell our products and worked hard contacting retail outlets all over Australia that were suitable to sell our products. Hard work and dedication and perseverance and determination got this business to where it is today, word of mouth being the best advertising.
Congratulations on the new owners Michael and Maria Pickles as we all wish you the best success for the future with Lemon Myrtle Fragrances.”
Kind Regards
Roger and Eileen Bird.