Let’s begin by letting you in on a little secret. Over 20 years ago the Buderim Ginger Factory relocated from Buderim & is now a tourist attraction located at Yandina. Although the factory itself is no longer in Buderim, The Buderim Ginger Shoppe can still be found thriving in the heart of Buderim, meeting the ongoing demand for those famous Buderim Ginger products. The story of Buderim Ginger’s history is an interesting one.

It all began way back in World War I when Mr Duthrie bought home some ginger roots from China which he gave to Mr Burnett, who planted them in his mandarin orchard in 1916. It took off in the rich volcanic soil & the crop was marketed as green ginger to fruit & vegetable markets across Australia. From this first foray into production, it took over 2 decades for ginger to be established as a major commodity.

In 1941 things got a bit more serious when the Buderim Ginger Growing Co-operative was formed, with its humble beginnings in a disused blacksmith’s shop opposite the Buderim Mountain State School oval (which is now the Middy’s Complex in Main Street). They started with capital of 25 pounds & 2 wooden vats.

Buderim was connected to the electricity grid in 1940, which was an enormous advantage to the factory. By this stage the ginger crop was 14 tons with growers off the mountain also supplying ginger to the factory for processing.

Big changes were afoot in 1949 when the factory was moved to the middle of Burnett St Buderim & due to a number of manufacturing advances at the time it became the only highly mechanised ginger factory of its kind in the world. Ginger could now be dried, crystallised & put into sugar syrup & brine. It was at this time the name ‘Merrybud’ was adopted,

In the early 1950’s, China flooded the world market with cheap produce & consequently production of Buderim Ginger suffered a major setback. But with the introduction of tariff protection following World War II, new markets opened up & the industry began to boom. Interestingly, no ginger was actually grown on Buderim Mountain by this time.

The Buderim Ginger Factory went on to receive export awards for its successful competition against Asian producers & at one time 90% of all preserved ginger used around the world for chocolate manufacture came from Buderim! Buderim ginger was considered the world’s only pure golden ginger. Its mild taste & fibre-free quality was (& still is!) unequalled anywhere in the world.

Beginning in 1979 & finalised in 1986, Buderim Ginger Limited moved their entire operation to a new ginger factory at Yandina, 25 mins north of Buderim, now known as ‘The Ginger Factory’. The Ginger Factory is still a popular tourist attraction on the Sunshine Coast & continues to play a major role in the worldwide ginger trade, producing the ‘world’s finest ginger’ & exporting Buderim Ginger to over 17 countries. They now have the capacity to process over 5000 ton of Ginger per year.

After falling into disrepair, in 1990 the old Ginger Factory in Buderim was cleaned up, given a fresh coat of paint, then covered in heritage murals & transformed into the Buderim Festival Markets in the heart of Burnett St, which serviced the Buderim community of about 3,000 residents & the tourists, with little shops & market stalls for nearly a decade. As the population grew, times changed & the inevitable re-development of the site happened when the old Ginger Factory was demolished in 1999 to make way for the all new Buderim Marketplace & Woolworths which opened its doors in 2000. This was after much protest from a large group of Buderim residents, who did not want to lose their Buderim Village atmosphere & thought it would be the death-knell for small business on the mountain. They did not see the need for a national supermarket chain right in the middle of Burnett Street.

Six years on & there are still some stalwart Buderim residents proud to have not stepped foot in the new supermarket, but with time things move on as they do & the Buderim Marketplace is now a thriving, bustling shopping precinct that has slotted in with the rest of Buderim evolving into the cosmopolitan, contemporary Buderim Village of today. (Note: Selected excerpts from The Flavours of Buderim Cookbook)

View our photo gallery of the Old Buderim Ginger Factory, taken just weeks before the vacant building was demolished in 1999.

To view the gallery photos... Click on a small image below to see the photo full-size. From there, use the Left & Right arrows to progress through the gallery. When done, click the Up arrow to return to this page. Enjoy!