BOWEN’S famous mango sorbets, available for sale at the Big Mango Visitor Information Centre on the Bruce Highway, south of Bowen, are again proving more popular than ever.
More than 40,000 tourists and locals visit the Information Centre and the information booth at Bowen’s Front Beach each year – and almost half of those bought a mango sorbet in the past 12 months.
Bowen Tourism and Business Manager Leanne Abernethy said a total of 18,500 sorbets were sold in the past financial year – smashing the previous year’s record of 17,000 sorbets.
“We know how popular they are but these figures are staggering,” she said.
“We sell them all year round and this is the closest thing you will get to a fresh Bowen mango when it is not mango season.”
Bowen is the birthplace of the famous Kensington Pride mangoes, also known as the Bowen Special. The sorbets are 100 per cent natural – simply pureed and frozen.
The sorbets are produced by long-term Bowen resident Patrick Martin, who sources the Kensington Pride mangoes locally; they are sold by Bowen Tourism and Business as well as by Patrick at the Airlie Beach markets, on Saturdays.
Mr Martin said he was very excited that another record had been broken and it was because ‘Bowen mangoes are the best mangoes in the world’.
“It is a pleasure to continue to supply the Big Mango with the sorbets – as I have been doing for the past 11 years,” he said.
“When Bowen Tourism and Business sold 17,000 sorbets last year, I thought that was the best numbers we would ever get, as the international borders had been closed due to COVID and we had more domestic visitors travelling around Queensland.
“But the state and international borders are open and we have smashed the sorbet sales record again.”
