Elderflowers help Romania's rural economy to bloom

As elder trees add to the beauty of Romania's landscapes, their white flowers help its rural economy grow when they are turned into cordials exported abroad, including Britain and Australia.

Every year Romanians anxiously await the blossom season in May and June to pick the delicately scented flowers and concoct a traditional soft drink called "socata".

The refreshing beverage has also inspired US giant Coca-Cola to launch an elderflower-based drink, Fanta Shokata.

In Transylvania, a picturesque region praised by Britain's Prince Charles for its rich flora and traditional agriculture, hundreds of seasonal workers carrying wicker baskets set out early in the morning to pick elderflowers.

They deliver their daily harvest to a small firm producing cordials, jams and chutneys, Transylvania Food Company (TFC), based in the village of Saschiz.

"Last year we picked 27 tonnes of elderflowers," manager Jim Turnbull told AFP.

They are turned into juice which is exported to Britain.

A processing company, Bottlegreen, then turns the juice into cordials and sparkling drinks which it sells in Britain, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.

Set up in 2010, the company has five full-time employees and has become the second-largest private employer in this village of 2000.

Romanian, American and Australian businessmen invested 350,000 euros ($A504,868.37) in TFC. Their aim was to help the region develop by stimulating traditional agriculture through a "middle-sized project".

About 1300 seasonal workers pick elderflowers every spring.

TFC pays two lei (45 euro cents, A64 cents) for a kilo of flowers, which is more than what they used to get when they sold the harvest to medicinal herb traders, one of the villagers told AFP.

An experienced picker can collect up to 20 kilos per day, bringing in 40 lei (9 euros, A$12) in a country where the minimum monthly wage is just under $A216.

In the neighbouring village of Bunesti, Sorin Neculae has also gone into making elderflower syrup.

After working in Finland in electronics and the food industry, Neculae felt the need to go back to the landscapes and the rural life he used to know as a child.

The ADEPT Foundation, which helps local producers benefit from a low-rent workshop that meets European standards in Saschiz, made it possible for Neculae to go into business without having to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to set up his own production facility.

"Elderflower drinks are an old tradition in Romania," Neculae said.

Under the communist regime when soft drinks were not available in shops, "'socata' was a wonderful beverage for us, children," said Carla Szabo, one of Romania's most famous jewellery designers.

Even after the fall of communism in 1989, Romanians did not abandon their 'socata', although the local market has been flooded by Western brands of beverages.

In 2002, Coca-Cola released the Fanta Shokata, "after having studied the traditional recipe of the Romanian 'socata'," the company told AFP. The drink is sold in several Balkan countries.

AFP