What does it look like when fifth-generation farming meets modern food entrepreneurship? For Sue Heward of Singing Magpie Produce in Monash, South Australia, it looks like sun-dried Smyrna quinces, semi-dried black and white figs, vine-ripened Shiraz grapes dried on the vine, and artisan gift boxes that tell the full story of the Riverland.

In this rich, grounded conversation recorded on the Heward family orchard, Tawnya Bahr sits down with Sue and her father Frank - a man who has farmed this property for over 60 years - to trace 105 years of family growing history, the birth of Sue’s business, Singing Magpie Produce nearly a decade ago, and the hard-won lessons of building a value-added food brand from the ground up. 

What You'll Hear in This Episode
105 years on the land - Frank traces the Heward family's growing history from the original quince trees to today's pecans, figs, quinces and grapes
The fruit fly reality - How Queensland fruit fly regulations have reshaped what the Hewards can sell fresh, pushing them further into value-adding and manufacturing supply for Maggie Beer and Beerenberg
The grape glut crisis - With Riverland winegrapes unwanted by the market, Frank explains how Sue turned the problem into "Dad's Vine Ripened Shiraz" - sun-dried Shiraz with a flavour that tastes like eating wine
How Singing Magpie began - Sue returned from 16 years in Melbourne, swapped a career in health prevention for commercial cookery, and spent her first year back picking figs and figuring out her next act
The first product and a Champion Award - Starting with 50 kilos of preservative-free, semi-sun-dried black figs sold on Facebook, the brand grew fast. The Smyrna sun-dried quince - made from her mother's recipe - won Champion at Sydney Royal Fine Foods in its first year
The sticky quince syrup - A zero-waste product born from the poaching liquid; reduced for seven hours until it's sweet, tart and just on the edge of caramelised. Works with cheese, duck, lamb and dessert equally
The full product range - From sun-dried mangoes to persimmons, jujubes from Black Sheep Produce in Loxton, locally sourced Medjool dates, and Solomon Gold vegan chocolate hand-tempered in the Riverland
The spectacular diced fruit mix - Deliberately sultana-free; packed with black and white figs, peaches, pears, apricots and candied lemon (the very same lemon used in the quince cooking process, wasted by no one)
Breast cancer and the business - Sue shares how a diagnosis at 50, followed by five months of chemotherapy, forced her to step back from the day-to-day - and accidentally prompted the team expansion and systems thinking that made the business stronger
Tasting Australia 2026 - A marquee event for 50-60 guests on the quince orchard, in collaboration with Temperance Restaurant and Hotel Renmark, in 65mm of unexpected Riverland rain. It was magical.

About Singing Magpie Produce

Singing Magpie Produce is an artisan dried fruit and specialty food brand based in Monash, South Australia, in the Riverland. Founded by Sue Heward, the brand grows from a fifth-generation family orchard and sources exclusively from Riverland producers to create premium, preservative-free dried fruits, sun-dried quinces, quince syrups, specialty gift boxes, and seasonal products.

Singing Magpie is a multi-award-winning producer. Their sun-dried Smyrna quince won Champion at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition in 2017, and the brand has since collected Gold and Silver medals at the RAS NSW Royal Fine Food Show and Australian Food Awards, appeared on MasterChef Australia (2018), have twice won the SA State title at the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards (2019 and 2025), and in 2025 became a National Finalist in the Sun-Dried Fruits - From the Earth category. Their products are stocked and supplied to food service clients across Australia through their collaboration with Straight To The Source.

People & Places Mentioned
Frank Heward - Sue's father; fifth-generation grower; 60+ years on the Monash property; innovator (mushroom tunnels, dried fruit, pecan planting)
Petty Orchards - Frank's grandmother's family orchards in Doncaster-Mitcham, Melbourne; a well-known horticultural name in the region
Maggie Beer Products - 24-year supply relationship for figs and quinces for manufacturing
Beerenberg - Current manufacturer customers for Heward Orchard 
Black Sheep Produce - Heidi and Dave, Loxton; growers of jujubes (Chinese red dates) supplied to Singing Magpie gift boxes
Solomon Gold - Vegan chocolate sourced from Sydney; hand-tempered by the Singing Magpie team
Almond Co. - Riverland almonds used in Singing Magpie gift boxes
Tasting Australia - Festival platform that brought guests from Adelaide, Mildura, Mount Gambier and Inverloch to the Monash orchard
Temperance Restaurant / Hotel Renmark - Collaborators on the Tasting Australia orchard event
Straight To The Source - food consultancy; 10-year relationship with Singing Magpie; connected the brand to chefs and food service nationally
Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition - Premier national food competition (Royal Agricultural Society); Singing Magpie's Smyrna sun-dried quince won Champion Award in its debut year
delicious Produce Awards: Multiple award winner, including most recently 2025 From the Earth South Australian National Finalist

Resources & Links
Singing Magpie Produce - Find their products and gift boxes online
Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition - rasnsw.com.au
Tasting Australia - South Australia's premier food and drink festival - tastingaustralia.com.au
Breast cancer awareness - Check your breasts monthly. National Breast Cancer Foundation - nbcf.org.au

About Straight To The Source

Straight To The Source brings you closer to the chefs, producers, growers and makers across the entire food chain, the people shaping where food is headed and why it matters. Hosted by food experts Tawnya Bahr and Lucy Allon. 

Follow, rate and review Straight To The Source to help more people discover the stories shaping Australia’s food and hospitality industry.

You can find us: 
Straight To The Source Food Podcast: https://lnk.to/jBCTBE
Straight To The Source Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/straight_to_the_source/ 
Straight To The Source Website: http://straighttothesource.com.au

Tawnya Bahr 
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tawnyabahr/ 
Instagram: @tawnyabahr  
Email: tbahr@straighttothesource.com.au

Lucy Allon
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyallon/ 
Instagram: @lucy_allon 
Email: lucy@straighttothesource.com.au

Keywords: Straight To The Source Podcast, Straight To The Source, Sue Heward, Frank Heward, Singing Magpie Produce, Riverland, South Australia, Australian food producers, family farming, generational farming, Australian figs, semi-dried figs, Smyrna quince, quince products, Riverland Shiraz, dried fruit Australia, artisan food products, value-added agriculture, food innovation, Australian produce, provenance, regional Australia, food entrepreneurship, farm to table, producer stories. 

What does it look like when fifth-generation farming meets modern food entrepreneurship? For Sue Heward of Singing Magpie Produce in Monash, South Australia, it looks like sun-dried Smyrna quinces, semi-dried black and white figs, vine-ripened Shiraz grapes dried on the vine, and artisan gift boxes that tell the full story of the Riverland.
In this rich, grounded conversation recorded on the Heward family orchard, Tawnya Bahr sits down with Sue and her father Frank - a man who has farmed this property for over 60 years - to trace 105 years of family growing history, the birth of Sue&rsquo;s business, Singing Magpie Produce nearly a decade ago, and the hard-won lessons of building a value-added food brand from the ground up.&nbsp;
What You'll Hear in This Episode
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">105 years on the land - Frank traces the Heward family's growing history from the original quince trees to today's pecans, figs, quinces and grapes</li>
<li aria-level="1">The fruit fly reality - How Queensland fruit fly regulations have reshaped what the Hewards can sell fresh, pushing them further into value-adding and manufacturing supply for Maggie Beer and Beerenberg</li>
<li aria-level="1">The grape glut crisis - With Riverland winegrapes unwanted by the market, Frank explains how Sue turned the problem into "Dad's Vine Ripened Shiraz" - sun-dried Shiraz with a flavour that tastes like eating wine</li>
<li aria-level="1">How Singing Magpie began - Sue returned from 16 years in Melbourne, swapped a career in health prevention for commercial cookery, and spent her first year back picking figs and figuring out her next act</li>
<li aria-level="1">The first product and a Champion Award - Starting with 50 kilos of preservative-free, semi-sun-dried black figs sold on Facebook, the brand grew fast. The Smyrna sun-dried quince - made from her mother's recipe - won Champion at Sydney Royal Fine Foods in its first year</li>
<li aria-level="1">The sticky quince syrup - A zero-waste product born from the poaching liquid; reduced for seven hours until it's sweet, tart and just on the edge of caramelised. Works with cheese, duck, lamb and dessert equally</li>
<li aria-level="1">The full product range - From sun-dried mangoes to persimmons, jujubes from Black Sheep Produce in Loxton, locally sourced Medjool dates, and Solomon Gold vegan chocolate hand-tempered in the Riverland</li>
<li aria-level="1">The spectacular diced fruit mix - Deliberately sultana-free; packed with black and white figs, peaches, pears, apricots and candied lemon (the very same lemon used in the quince cooking process, wasted by no one)</li>
<li aria-level="1">Breast cancer and the business - Sue shares how a diagnosis at 50, followed by five months of chemotherapy, forced her to step back from the day-to-day - and accidentally prompted the team expansion and systems thinking that made the business stronger</li>
<li aria-level="1">Tasting Australia 2026 - A marquee event for 50-60 guests on the quince orchard, in collaboration with Temperance Restaurant and Hotel Renmark, in 65mm of unexpected Riverland rain. It was magical.</li>
</ul>
About Singing Magpie Produce
Singing Magpie Produce is an artisan dried fruit and specialty food brand based in Monash, South Australia, in the Riverland. Founded by Sue Heward, the brand grows from a fifth-generation family orchard and sources exclusively from Riverland producers to create premium, preservative-free dried fruits, sun-dried quinces, quince syrups, specialty gift boxes, and seasonal products.
Singing Magpie is a multi-award-winning producer. Their sun-dried Smyrna quince won Champion at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition in 2017, and the brand has since collected Gold and Silver medals at the RAS NSW Royal Fine Food Show and Australian Food Awards, appeared on MasterChef Australia (2018), have twice won the SA State title at the delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards (2019 and 2025), and in 2025 became a National Finalist in the Sun-Dried Fruits - From the Earth category. Their products are stocked and supplied to food service clients across Australia through their collaboration with Straight To The Source.
People &amp; Places Mentioned
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Frank Heward - Sue's father; fifth-generation grower; 60+ years on the Monash property; innovator (mushroom tunnels, dried fruit, pecan planting)</li>
<li aria-level="1">Petty Orchards - Frank's grandmother's family orchards in Doncaster-Mitcham, Melbourne; a well-known horticultural name in the region</li>
<li aria-level="1">Maggie Beer Products - 24-year supply relationship for figs and quinces for manufacturing</li>
<li aria-level="1">Beerenberg - Current manufacturer customers for Heward Orchard&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Black Sheep Produce - Heidi and Dave, Loxton; growers of jujubes (Chinese red dates) supplied to Singing Magpie gift boxes</li>
<li aria-level="1">Solomon Gold - Vegan chocolate sourced from Sydney; hand-tempered by the Singing Magpie team</li>
<li aria-level="1">Almond Co. - Riverland almonds used in Singing Magpie gift boxes</li>
<li aria-level="1">Tasting Australia - Festival platform that brought guests from Adelaide, Mildura, Mount Gambier and Inverloch to the Monash orchard</li>
<li aria-level="1">Temperance Restaurant / Hotel Renmark - Collaborators on the Tasting Australia orchard event</li>
<li aria-level="1">Straight To The Source - food consultancy; 10-year relationship with Singing Magpie; connected the brand to chefs and food service nationally</li>
<li aria-level="1">Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition - Premier national food competition (Royal Agricultural Society); Singing Magpie's Smyrna sun-dried quince won Champion Award in its debut year</li>
<li aria-level="1">delicious Produce Awards: Multiple award winner, including most recently 2025 From the Earth South Australian National Finalist</li>
</ul>
Resources &amp; Links
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Singing Magpie Produce - Find their products and gift boxes online</li>
<li aria-level="1">Sydney Royal Fine Food Competition -<a href="https://www.rasnsw.com.au/"> rasnsw.com.au</a></li>
<li aria-level="1">Tasting Australia - South Australia's premier food and drink festival -<a href="https://www.tastingaustralia.com.au/"> tastingaustralia.com.au</a></li>
<li aria-level="1">Breast cancer awareness - Check your breasts monthly. National Breast Cancer Foundation -<a href="https://www.nbcf.org.au/"> nbcf.org.au</a></li>
</ul>
About Straight To The Source
Straight To The Source brings you closer to the chefs, producers, growers and makers across the entire food chain, the people shaping where food is headed and why it matters. Hosted by food experts Tawnya Bahr and Lucy Allon.&nbsp;
Follow, rate and review Straight To The Source to help more people discover the stories shaping Australia&rsquo;s food and hospitality industry.
You can find us:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Straight To The Source Food Podcast: <a href="https://lnk.to/jBCTBE">https://lnk.to/jBCTBE</a></li>
<li aria-level="1">Straight To The Source Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/straight_to_the_source/">https://www.instagram.com/straight_to_the_source/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Straight To The Source Website: <a href="http://straighttothesource.com.au">http://straighttothesource.com.au</a></li>
</ul>
Tawnya Bahr&nbsp;
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">LinkedIn:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tawnyabahr/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/tawnyabahr/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tawnyabahr/">@tawnyabahr</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Email: tbahr@straighttothesource.com.au</li>
</ul>
Lucy Allon
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">LinkedIn:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyallon/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyallon/</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lucy_allon">@lucy_allon</a>&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Email: <a href="mailto:lucy@straighttothesource.com.au">lucy@straighttothesource.com.au</a></li>
</ul>
Keywords: Straight To The Source Podcast, Straight To The Source, Sue Heward, Frank Heward, Singing Magpie Produce, Riverland, South Australia, Australian food producers, family farming, generational farming, Australian figs, semi-dried figs, Smyrna quince, quince products, Riverland Shiraz, dried fruit Australia, artisan food products, value-added agriculture, food innovation, Australian produce, provenance, regional Australia, food entrepreneurship, farm to table, producer stories.&nbsp;

Welcome to the Straight To The Source podcast, where leadership meets the future of food.

Hosted by two of Australia’s most respected food industry voices, Tawnya Bahr and Lucy Allon, the Straight To The Source podcast connects you directly with the changemakers shaping how we grow, source, and experience food.

With decades of experience spanning the kitchen, dining room, and boardroom, as chef, restaurateur, consultants, and educators, Tawnya and Lucy bring an insider’s lens to the challenges and innovations driving the industry forward.

From producers pioneering regenerative practices to hospitality leaders reimagining what sustainability means on the plate, each episode explores the strategies, stories, and leadership mindsets transforming the global food landscape and ensuring a thriving, sustainable food future for generations to come.

Get ready for bold ideas, honest conversations, and the kind of insights that move industries forward.

Follow, comment, and hit that bell for more Straight To The Source episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

To stay up to date, follow Straight To The Source on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Welcome to the Straight To The Source podcast, where leadership meets the future of food.
Hosted by two of Australia&rsquo;s most respected food industry voices, Tawnya Bahr and Lucy Allon, the Straight To The Source podcast connects you directly with the changemakers shaping how we grow, source, and experience food.
With decades of experience spanning the kitchen, dining room, and boardroom, as chef, restaurateur, consultants, and educators, Tawnya and Lucy bring an insider&rsquo;s lens to the challenges and innovations driving the industry forward.
From producers pioneering regenerative practices to hospitality leaders reimagining what sustainability means on the plate, each episode explores the strategies, stories, and leadership mindsets transforming the global food landscape and ensuring a thriving, sustainable food future for generations to come.
Get ready for bold ideas, honest conversations, and the kind of insights that move industries forward.
Follow, comment, and hit that bell for more Straight To The Source episodes on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/straight-to-the-source/id1610058270">Apple Podcasts</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1FwFeGJI0wp15O9KiDn28c?si=20a9b788479446c7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@straighttothesource7730">YouTube</a>.
To stay up to date, follow Straight To The Source on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/straight.to.the.source/?hl=en">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/straighttothesourcefoodtours">Facebook </a>and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/straight-to-the-source/">LinkedIn</a>.