Australian Truffle Traders, Media Release, 24 June 2026

In a Western Australian first, 1.5 kilograms of white truffles have been unearthed from the soil of Australian Truffle Traders’ farm in Manjimup.

Family business Australian Truffle Traders discovered the bianchetto white truffles, known scientifically as Tuber borchii, on their Southern Forests farm yesterday.

It is the first white truffle the family has harvested, and, they believe, the first anywhere in the state.

Until now, the bianchetto has been grown only overseas and in a few selected places on Australia’s eastern seaboard.

The bianchetto truffle grows on the roots of stone pine trees, the Italian conifer Pinus pinea.

“We weren’t expecting this when we went out truffle hunting yesterday morning,” says Gavin Booth, owner of Australian Truffle Traders.

“We are thrilled to find a white truffle from trees we planted only a few years ago.”

The Booth family planted 500 stone pine trees across two sites in 2022, with no guarantee the white truffle would ever form in Western Australian conditions.

Manjimup and the Southern Forests sub-region is known as the Southern Hemisphere’s epicentre of the black Périgord truffle, Tuber melanosporum, producing approximately 80 per cent of all black truffles grown south of the equator.

“I want to be clear that his is the bianchetto, the white truffle you can grow. It is not the Alba white that has never been able to be farmed,” states Booth

“This means a true white truffle can grow here, in Manjimup, on the same country that made our black truffles famous.”

The bianchetto is the cultivable, more affordable cousin of the famous Italian white Alba truffle, the Tuber magnatum, which fetches premium prices and has seen every attempt to farm it anywhere in the world fail.

Bianchetto truffles fetch a similar price to black truffles, up to $3,000 per kilo retail.

The bianchetto carries a distinct flavour profile, very different to the region’s celebrated black truffle, which is known for its heady, umami, earthy aroma.

“It is all garlic and onion, pungent and savoury with the bianchetto,” Booth says.

“It is the kind of aroma that fills a kitchen the moment you walk in the door with one in your pocket.

“Within hours of posting our find on social media, I had interest from chefs from Sydney to San Francisco – I expect there’ll be some demand for these white beauties.”

Australian Truffle Traders is one of the two largest growers and aggregators of black truffle in the Southern Hemisphere. A cultivated white truffle broadens what the region can put in front of chefs, food retailers and home cooks.

“We planted these pines almost as an experiment, following my philosophy of a sustainable forest for food,” he says.

“Truffles are fickle to grow. You cannot rush them and you cannot force them, so to have some white ones finally appear feels like the land is letting us in on a secret.

“Who knows, maybe by the end of the season we’ll have a ‘white truffle hunt’ experience that guests can book.

“But for now, we’ll be taking our trusty hounds into the orchard to see if they can find more and offer them to our best customers first.”

Australian Truffle Traders hosts truffle hunts on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday during the black truffle season, which can be booked through sister business Hound & Hunter and includes a truffle-laden Country Lunch.

Freshly harvested black truffles can be ordered online and are cold-packed and sent via express post across the country.

Visit www.australiantruffletraders.com for more information.