Salba™ Rediscovered
The story of Salba™ in the modern world has not exactly been an overnight success. After the nutritious seed lay forgotten for centuries the first modern experimental plots for Salba™ were started in 1991 in Argentina by two brothers, Adolfo and Alfredo Mealla.
The Mealla brothers spent 15 years researching and planting experimental crops, first in Colombia and then in Bolivia and Peru.
The word Salba™ is a combination of the botanical name, Salvia hispanica L and the Latin name for white, Alba. The breakthrough for the Salba™ team was the discovery that through careful non-genetically modified cultivation, they were able to successfully grow white seeds, which were nutritionally more consistent and nutrient dense than the mostly black seeds.
Today, Salba™ is exclusively grown under strictly controlled conditions in the Amazon basin in the desert coast of Southern Peru due to its ideal climate and pristine environment.
In 2004 Salba™ had a hugely successful launch in Canada, where much of Salba™’s Research and Development resources have been spent investigating the nutritional benefits of the seed. The Mealla brothers were determined that the ancient grain’s reputation for providing nutritional sustenance could be verified by modern scientific research. The University of Toronto has been heavily involved in examining Salba™'s nutritional content, and research is ongoing at it's teaching facility, St Michael's Hospital. Dr Vladimir Vuksan, professor at the University of Toronto’s faculty of medicine, studied the grain and found it had a number of benefits, leading him to describe it as “the perfect functional food”.
In late 2007, Dr Vuksan’s findings into Salba™ were published in the prestigious Diabetes Care Journal.
Now Salba™ is being introduced into bread for the first time in New Zealand by Yarrows Family Bakers, a third generation family bakery, based in Manaia, South Taranaki. The winners of the Food and Beverage Exporter of the Year Award at the 2007 New Zealand Export Awards, Yarrows Family Bakers is committed to developing its bakery through innovation and through producing nutritionally superior products.
A New Zealand first, Yarrows new range of Salba™ enriched Superbreads are the first of many products the company plans to introduce, harnessing the amazing properties of Salba™, the ancient supergrain of the Aztecs.
