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About Us

A Family Tradition

In 2021 was the Heward family orchard 100 year celebration. Over that time the Heward family has tended their orchard in the rich and generous soils of the Riverland, South Australia. It’s beautiful, fertile country — but hot as hell in summer and often in and out of drought.  We are proud and feel privileged to be living and working on Erawirung Country. 

Amos 'Jack' Heward, a returned soldier settler, planted his orchard in the 1920s at Monash and today the family harvests 1000 fig, 200 quince, 50 pecan trees, and approximately 100 tonnes of wine grapes. 

Hear Sue Heward talk with Tawnya Bahr from Straight to the Source about her family heritage and Singing Magpie Produce (Feb 2022) 

 

Heward Family

Sue Heward family

Tree change

Despite growing up wild and free in the cornucopia of the Riverland, Sue Heward, like so many young Australians before her, was keen to explore the world. After 28 years of global travel and career-building, she found herself deeply embedded in the Melbourne rat-race, living an urban lifestyle but desperate to share the life she knew as a child with her partner and young daughter. So in early 2016 Sue, Mark and three-year-old Frankie took the plunge: they swapped the hustle of the city for the rustle of fig trees.

  

Sue Heward

chocolate enrobed figs 

Singing Magpie Produce

Exactly one year later, Singing Magpie Produce was born. With a strong focus on customer service and the requirements of the hospitality industry, Singing Magpie brings delicious, high-quality products to consumers who care where their food is coming from. We keep it simple, we don’t skimp on quality and we care about our ecological footprint. We use low impact farming methods and our focus is on providing access for customers to seasonal Australian produce.

Our Heward orchard customers are a select group of quality-conscious consumers, including Maggie Beer, Beerenberg and the Adelaide Wholesale Fruit & Vegetable market. Our move into semi-dried products aims to offer unique Australian products to the market and minimise our product waste.

Our plan started small with our semi-dried figs and quinces. This has now been expanded to sticky quince syrup and figs, other local sun dried produce, fruit enrobed in premium dark chocolate couverture and unique Australian Giftboxes.

grazing table

Rainbow Deluxe Box

Why are we so passionate about DRIED figs?

Australia grows beautiful figs — plump, juicy, full-flavoured and with jewel-like pink centres that make even the simplest meal feel like a medieval feast. Unfortunately, the season is painfully short and fresh figs are a bugger to transport. Dried figs are the obvious answer. However Australians are used to the bland, grey imported product that are squashed flat and dried hard for their long journey in a shipping container.

At Singing Magpie we saw a huge opportunity to bring local foodies Australian semi-dried figs. Our figs are naturally sun-dried to retain their best figgy qualities, including intense flavour and a decadent chewy, stickiness that blends beautifully with many texture and flavour combinations. Our figs have no additives. We hand pick them, dry them in the beautiful Riverland sun and ship them to you — that’s it!

Photo credits: Meaghan Coles and Josh Geelen

Awards

2017 Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
Regional Champion: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince.
Gold: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince
Silver: Sun Dried Black Genoa Figs.

2018 Australian Food Awards
Silver: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince, Sun Dried Black Genoa Figs
Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
Gold: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince, Sun Dried Black Genoa, White Smyrna Figs.

2019 State Winner delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince
Australian Food Awards
Gold: Sun Dried White Smyrna Figs
Silver: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince
Bronze: Sun Dried Black Genoa Figs
Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
Gold: Sun Dried White Smyrna Figs
Silver: Sun Dried Smyrna Quince, Black Genoa Figs
South Australian Premier’s Food and Beverage Industry Awards Finalist.

2020-21 Gold Winner delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards: Sun Dried Black Genoa Figs
Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
Gold: Sticky Quince Syrup
Silver: Sticky Quince Figs 

2022 Sydney Royal Fine Food Show
Silver: Fig Leaf and Rose Tea, Sun Dried Black Genoa Figs
Bronze: White Smyrna Figs.

2023 South Australian Premier’s Food and Beverage Industry Awards Finalist Business Excellence Award (for businesses with up to 15 FTEs)