"We'd had enough of dealing with the big commercial retailers"

Rayner’s Orchard is fast making a name for itself as a tourist destination in its own right, but the family run business still supplies fresh fruit to the local farmer’s markets, chefs and visitors. "We'd had enough of dealing with the big commercial retailers," says Cameron Rayner, the orchard owner Len’s son. "We decided to stop doing it because it wasn't worth it for the returns and the prices we were getting. Now we've got a $150,000 sorting and grading machine we don't use."

The feijoa

The property grows more than 360 varieties of fruit including citrus, stonefruit and exotics such as feijoas, pepinos, Chinese quinces and tamarillos. Of those 360, 200 are peach and nectarine varieties, according to Mr Rayner.

Mr Rayner says himself that it is hard to keep up with all of the different plantings in the ground at any one time. “We have fruit every day of the year,” he adds. The orchard features 80,000 tamarillo trees alone, and Mr Rayner says that as far as he knows Rayner’s is the biggest grower of tamarillos and feijoas in Australia. “Whatever we’re interested in the philosophy is we just plant it and see if it grows,” he says. “We might try just a couple of rows at first, as we’ve done with golden kiwi fruit, an experimental crop. We’ve also got mandarins as an experimental crop.”

Dutch medlars

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The Rayners decided in 2009 to go down a different route and create a value added business, capitalizing on the tourism industry and the location not far from Victoria’s Yarra Valley. The Peach Café was added to the premises, and has since been expanded to accommodate the loads of tourists who come for tours followed by lunch cooked on site. Bottling classes, tastings and tractor tours are all part of the experience now for visitors from within Australia and abroad. The farm is also a ‘pick your own’ operation, where prices usually start from around $5 per kilo.

Cameron Rayner

“We like to deal direct with the consumer as much as possible,” says Mr Rayner. “I’m back in the business helping out with my brother again because our father Len simply can’t keep up with the demand.”

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For more information:
Cameron Rayner
Tel: +61 3 5964 7654
www.raynerstonefruit.com.au/