Treasure hunter

Every day is a treasure hunt for Anna Terry, a young Tasmanian truffle farmer who helped unearth the biggest truffle grown in Australia.

Story Julie Miller  Photo The Truffle Farm

Nose to the ground, Douglas the golden labrador trots along a line of oak trees, searching for buried treasure. Sniff, sniff, pause – here! Gently scratching at the soil, he turns to his handler Anna Terry for a treat as reward. Anna then digs a little deeper into the soil with her hands to reveal the prize – a pungent black truffle.

A second-generation truffle farmer, 30-year-old Anna manages her family’s farm in Deloraine, Tas, running tours as well as daily operations of the truffle business, including the seasonal reveal of the rare and valuable fungi.

But recently, Anna and her 3 faithful hounds – Douglas, Poppy and Peggy – uncovered something they hadn’t bargained for. After receiving a tip-off from an employee about an unusual mound of dirt in a plantation, she went with her father and husband to investigate.

“Very quickly all 3 of my dogs went bang, bang, bang – they hit that spot and said, ‘Mum, there’s something here!’” Anna says. “We started digging and it got bigger and bigger. My husband was watching Dad and I giggling like 2 toddlers. We were in our element!”

What they had uncovered was the biggest truffle ever produced in Australia, weighing 1.074kg – around 10 times the size of the average truffle and worth more than $1,500.

Sharing this momentous occasion with her father made this discovery even more special for Anna. Now retired, Tim harvested the first black truffle ever produced in Australia, in 1999, kicking off an industry that now ranks fourth in the world in terms of yield.

“I remember that day so well – June 18,” Anna recalls. “I came home from school – I was only 5 at the time – and there was a news crew here and my father had a cigar. I’d never seen Dad with a cigar before. That was the day the first truffle in the country had come out of the ground.”