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All in the wash for Safeguard Innovations

Country crackers: Safeguard Innovations’ Jeff Wood and Dieter Wesche with the organic fruit and vegetable wash they export. Picture: Mogens Johansen/The West Australian.

After recently cracking the holy grail of export markets with a shipment to Shanghai, WA-company Safeguard Innovations has this week made inroads into the second place on its export wish list — California in the US.

Managing director Dieter Wesche sent a half container of his organic fruit and vegetable wash to the American West Coast, which is renowned for its focus on healthy living.

Next on its export wishlist is India, though after five years of negotiations, Mr Wesche said he had learned to be patient on this matter.

The Wesche family created the organic product in 2008, after seeing similar products overseas.

It is designed to remove 100 times more surface contaminants from fruit and vegetables than washing with water alone.

More than 200 laboratory tests have shown it can not only remove the fungicides, pesticides and waxes that occur in the farming process but also the germs carried by shoppers who peruse the supermarket aisles.

After debuting in WA about six years ago, it is now being used in more than 10 countries around the world, including Estonia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore.

Mr Wesche said the product’s popularity on a global scale was due partly to Australia’s international reputation for being clean and green.

“We tried to have it bottled in Shanghai, and we had to put a label on it saying it was bottled in China, ” he said.

“But we had to stop it within one month because people consider products made entirely in Australia to be safe and to be superior to other products.”

Mr Wesche said the wash was considered important, despite the fact governments limited the use of pesticides and other farming chemicals to safe levels. He said there was growing concern about whether all farmers properly adhered to the limits.

“Can you rely on the fact that someone else has done the right thing, and applied the right dose, of fungicides and pesticides?” he said. Mr Wesche said he was hopeful of cracking the Indian market where fresh produce faced the added risk of being washed in dirty water, which can cause severe health problems.

Its growing exports have earned it a finalist place in the small business export category of the Industry and Export Awards.