The Grove Distillery owners Steve and Val Hughes were ‘incensed’ when they saw images of strawberry farmers dumping their produce following several cases of needle sabotage.
Their immediate response was to show support for the industry, and announce a special range of strawberry products.
They ordered 300 kilograms of strawberries from Busselton Farmers’ Market and their team spent four days chopping them up.
The strawberries will be used to create a strawberry liqueur, a strawberry gin and a mixed berry vodka.
“We thought what can we do,” Ms Hughes said.
“There was just so many, so we decided to do more than a liqueur and create a gin, plus add the strawberries to a mixed berry vodka.”
Ms Hughes said they’d received a wave of support since the announcement of the strawberry flavours.
“We’ve had our first orders for the gin come in,” she said.
“People actually came to the cellar door because they know the story of why we are doing it.”
Ms Hughes urged people to continue to buy strawberries, and echoed the ‘cut them up, not cut them out’ campaign.
“It is a case of just being sensible following what’s happened and checking your strawberries before you put them in your mouth,” she said.
“It appears to be a couple of irresponsible people doing this and it has almost devastated a whole industry.
“We cut up a huge amount and didn’t find anything suspect.”