Andrea Scardamaglia’s strawberry trifle

"Everyone comes in and asks the same thing: ‘Did Andrea make the strawberry trifle?"

Strawberry grower, Tony Scardamaglia supplies Coles with the freshest in-season strawberries grown on his family's farm.

There’s one question Coles strawberry producer Tony Scardamaglia has come to expect when he sees his family on Christmas morning. “Everyone comes in and asks the same thing: ‘Did Andrea make the strawberry trifle?',” says Tony. His wife, Andrea, has been making the Christmas classic for the past 20 years. “It’s always a hit,” says Tony.

It should come as no surprise that the trifle is topped with a generous amount of strawberries. They’re always freshly picked from the farm Tony’s father, Fortunato (known as Fred), bought in 1969, originally an hour’s drive from the family’s Melbourne home at the time. “It was more of an orchard farm back then, with cherries, peaches and apples,” recalls Tony, who moved to the farm permanently with his parents and three brothers when he was about six.

In the mid-1970s, Fred began experimenting with strawberry plants on a quarter-acre block, and today Strawberries R Us sits on 300 acres with Fred and Tony’s mum, Pasqualina (known as Lina), still in the farmhouse where Tony grew up. It’s here that Christmas is still celebrated each year. “Dad’s 84 and still working and my mum’s in her late seventies,” says Tony of his Italian-born parents. “They just love the business. It would be too boring for them to retire.” Tony, Andrea and their two children now live nearby on another farm.

With the lead-up to Christmas being the busiest time of year on the farm, it’s likely Tony will be working for at least part of Christmas Day. But he’ll be sure to take a few hours off to enjoy the company of his family and the lasagne, parmigiana and deep-fried rice balls his mother is famous for. “Everyone looks forward to the rice balls,” he says. “They’re crispy and delicious.”