Yandilla

As with most things great in the specialty food business, the story of Yandilla Mustard Seed Oil starts out with a family. In her youth, Kaye—a native of Australia— ventured to Nepal with the Australian Diplomatic Corps. It was there she met her eventual husband, Micky Weatherall—an English ex-pat whose family had lived there for years. They married and raised a family in Nepal.

While living in Nepal, Kaye and Micky developed a taste for the pungent, spicy mustard seed oil of the region. Upon retirement in 1981, the couple returned to Australia and bought a small property in the town of Yandilla near Wallendbeen, New South Wales—an area that was just starting to commercialize canola crops. Upon realizing that the conditions were perfect for growing mustard and after receiving encouragement from the Australian government, they began to cultivate mustard plants with low erucic acid.

Within three years—using the simplest of Mendel plant crossbreeding techniques (not gene splicing)—he had developed a food grade, low erucic acid, spicy mustard seed "patent." Local farmers were enlisted to grow this proprietary seed, and a new artisanal industry was born: Yandilla Mustard Oil Enterprise.

Sadly, Micky and Kaye have passed on, but their son Vivian Weatherall continues his family's business, bringing us a one-of-a-kind, internationally acclaimed Mustard Seed Oil.