In the Northern Territory, the mango season is ramping up, with growers sending thousands of trays to markets around Australia this week. Australia produced more than 10 million trays for the first time last season, with 48 per cent of the national mango crop produced by the Northern Territory. Farmers and industry groups believe this year's crop will be slightly less, but the NT is still forecast to produce a whopping 4 to 4.5 million trays.
Outside Darwin, the Berry Creek mango packing shed is in full swing, which manager Tim Elliott said was relatively early: "The season looks like it's running about three weeks early to what it traditionally does. The volumes so far are beyond what we have ever done for the early season fruit, so that's good for the consumers down south. And we are expecting supply to slowly move through until the end of November, [so] we'll be in the peak of the season for the next few weeks."
NT Mango Industry Association president Leo Skliros said consumers could look forward to some great-tasting mangoes this year. He said prices for growers right now were good at roughly $45 a tray for first-grade Kensington Pride mangoes: "The quality is definitely looking good and it's going to be a nice steady flow [of mangoes onto the market] until the end of November. The volume of Kensington Pride mangoes will definitely be down, but I believe Calypso mangoes are still up there with last year's volumes and maybe even slightly higher.”
Source: abc.net.au
