Business goes bananas

THE inventor of the world's first banana flour is taking the product to the next level, with construction of a multimillion-dollar factory set to start in far north Queensland within months.

Second-generation banana grower Rob Watkins, the 2010 Young Australian Farmer of the Year, and his wife Krista, have spent the past three years developing Mt Uncle's Green Banana Flour, on Rob's family's 300-hectare property at Walkamin, west of Cairns.

Made from green Australian lady finger bananas, the flour is gluten free, one of the richest sources of resistance starch in the world, high in potassium, magnesium, dietary fibre and vitamin E - and has the scientific evidence to prove it.

While currently a cottage industry, Mt Uncle's Green Banana Flour has made huge inroads in its brief history on the market.

Having invested his life savings and two years of hard work in research and development, Rob believes his product will revolutionise the Australian banana industry, turning unsaleable products into profit.

Rob, a coeliac who has transformed his health using the banana flour in his diet, stumbled on the product by accident.

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