It’s no secret that we’re in a bit of a plant-based culinary renaissance at the moment, with the likes of oat, rice, almond, macadamia and soy milk becoming staples at local coffee shops, supermarkets and household kitchens around the globe.

Melburnian Laura Hindson first learnt about Tiger nuts (not that – get your minds out of the gutter, please) via her father-in-law, who grew up in Mali, West Africa. After finding out about a female-led tiger-nut farming collective in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Laura quickly became inspired to partner with the collective and bring the African flavour of tiger nut milk to the Aussie market. We recently caught up with Laura to chat about the process of building her own plant-based milk brand, Madame Tiger, as well as her goals for the biz.

Hiya Laura! Who the hell are ya? Hello! I’m Laura and I am the founder of Madame Tiger. I have a background in food marketing and decided that I would start a business all about tiger nuts and tiger nut milk, and I’m still very heavily involved in the production of it all. We're a pretty lean team and a family-run business, so I do a bit of everything!

So, what are tiger nuts? They’re not actually nuts – they are more like root vegetables – and they're completely allergen-free. They get the name ‘tiger nuts’ because they've got little stripes on them, and they're in a similar family to sweet potatoes, so they grow in the ground.

How would you describe their taste? They are quite sweet, almost like a cashew or an almond, but they're incredibly high in fibre. They’re something like 26 per cent fibre, so I personally don't think that they're that great to eat on their own. They’re incredibly versatile in cooking, which is why I've gone down the path of making milk out of them – because of the flavour and nutrition.How did Madame Tiger come to be? It all began when I was on maternity leave after having twins in 2019. I was at the tail end of my leave and was trying to figure out if I wanted to go back and work in the job that I was previously in. I was talking to my father-in-law who was born and raised in Mali and he introduced us to tiger nuts, which are abundant where he’s from.

We did a little bit of digging and watched a documentary at the African Film Festival in New Zealand all about this female tiger-nut farming collective called Mousso Faso that had been really mistreated and exploited by big, European companies. I ended up getting in touch with the filmmaker whose wife was setting up a charity to support these women, and we eventually got in touch with the collective and ended up buying their first harvest in 2020. We bought six tonnes of tiger nuts and, if I'm really honest, we didn't really know how we were going to do this, we just knew that we wanted to make something work! We ended up with a factory here in Melbourne for the production of the milk, and we’ve bought two full harvests of Mousso Faso since.

How did you end up making Mousso Faso part of your business? It all started from WhatsApp messages! I was attempting to speak French to someone who was attempting to speak English, so there were definitely translation struggles at first. Of course, we had to work out what price we were going to pay, which was really important to us. We all agreed on a price at the start of the season that would benefit both parties. The first time we bought off them, we had to help them write a supply contract, but it was so important for us to help them out and get them back on their feet.

What makes tiger nut milk different to other non-dairy milk products? When we were first developing the milk recipe, I very much came at it from an angle of a home cook as opposed to a technical developer. I think how it's different from cow's milk and other plant-based milk is that it is completely allergen-free, so if you've got an allergy to dairy, soy or gluten, you can have our milk!

The other really big thing is that people are beginning to learn that just because something is plant-based, that doesn’t always mean it’s healthy. Our decision to use Australian extra virgin olive oil instead of canola or sunflower oil really sets us apart from most plant-based milks. I wanted there to be a plant-based milk option that had the same protein, fat, vitamins and minerals as full cream cow's milk, so our milk delivers a plant-based alternative that doesn't compromise on nutrition.What are some of your favourite recipes to cook with tiger nuts and tiger nut milk? I started off just making banana bread in the very beginning, which works really nicely because tiger nuts are naturally quite sweet. We also do a lot of smoothies in our house every morning for breakfast. I’m always experimenting in the kitchen with tiger nuts, and I’m going to give some ice-cream recipes a crack, too!

Where do you see Madame Tiger in the future? We would love tiger nut milk to become something that’s readily available at cafes all across Australia. We'd also love to be in supermarkets and health food stores nationally. We've also got ambitions to try and bring the brand overseas, but right now we’re mostly focused on trying to grow the brand as much as we can in Australia, and then we can start to look beyond.

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