Western Australia's largest mango and grapefuit plantations sold

Western Australia's largest mango plantation and the biggest red grapefruit plantation in Australia have been sold after two years of being in receivership.

The owner of Perth's Spud Shed Supermarkets, Tony Galati, has purchased both farms for an unknown sum.

The farms in Kununurra run 120,000 mango trees and 80,000 red grapefruit trees and were owned by the managed investment company Rewards Group, until it went into administration in 2010.

Mr Galati says he plans to ramp up operations by next year.

"There isn't much more to expand," he said.

"All we need to do is get the (mango) trees up and running and get them producing. At the moment, their potential yield is about 10 per cent of what it can yield. They have still got a long way to go."

The sale of the property includes a packing shed which can handle 1.2 million trays and was built for $6 million.

Mr Galati says his company is looking to invest in more processing equipment.

"This property produces a lot of class 2 and class 3 fruit and it's a waste to see it thrown out, so we've already made enquiries to bring a processing plant in from overseas, so we can produce out own mango cheeks, produce our own pulp and we're looking at a hydrator to dry the mangoes as well.

"It'll be another avenue, not just for us, but for other growers, so if they've got the fruit available we'll buy it off them."

Mr Galati says the company is also interested in growing bananas in the Ord Irrigation Scheme.

Source: abc.net.au

Publication date: Wed 31 Oct 2012