Back in the 1940s Australia imported all of its ginger from China, but supply stopped during the Second World War so a group of growers in Buderim, Queensland, decided to grow it for themselves. These four growers formed the Buderim Ginger Growers' Co-operative which became famous throughout the world for its confectionary ginger.
One of those growers was Allen Templeton and now seventy years and, three generations later, Templeton Ginger is Australia's largest ginger grower.
"Our production varies year to year depending on the market requirements and seasonal conditions. We plant around 60 hectares of ginger each year which produces 3000 -3500 tonnes per year," explains Kylie Templeton (Commercial Director) at Templeton Ginger.
The company sells about 2/3 of their production to the fresh market and the other third goes to processing.
"All of the ginger for the fresh market is packed on site, we also process some for our processing customers depending on their requirements. We saw a real uptake in demand during COVID as people became more aware of the health benefits of ginger, but that seems to have stabilised now."
Templetons sells fresh ginger into the wholesale markets and directly to processing customers.
According to Kylie one of the biggest challenges of growing ginger is the management of disease and pest incursions. As a result, the company has implemented strict biosecurity protocols. Back in 2010 some Australian growers reported losses of one-third of yearly production with Pythium myriotylum spreading at a rate of 10 square metres a day. It took seven years to gain the knowledge and information to tackle the issue and anyone who didn't implement the biosecurity measure is not in the ginger business anymore.
Most of Australia's ginger is grown in Queensland with a very small amount grown in New South Wales. In the year ending June 2021, Australia produced 5,184 tonnes of ginger. The volume of fresh supply was 2,745 tonnes (53.0%) with a wholesale value of $61.6 million. Overall, the gross value of production (GVP) of the ginger industry has steadily risen over the past seven financial years. After a spike in the value of ginger during the COVID-19 pandemic, the GVP for the 2020-21 financial year was $54.7 million, an increase of more than $3 million from the previous financial year.
Australia is a net importer of ginger for processing, with imports predominantly originating from countries with lower input costs, including China, Vietnam, India, Thailand and Fiji. The Australian fresh supply chain for ginger has historically been serviced by Australian ginger producers.. Imports of fresh ginger in brine are typically used in processing and never entered the fresh supply chain. In the past decade, there has been regulatory changes to fresh ginger imports, which has allowed the supply and sale of fresh ginger from Fiji in Australia. This means that the Australian ginger supply is now competing with low-input-cost ginger from Fiji, shifting the industry's focus towards increasing yield and differentiating the Australian product in the market both domestically and internationally. Australian ginger has only a few key export markets, with New Zealand accounting for 90% of fresh ginger exports in the year ending June 2021. This was followed by Singapore at 7%, and Kiribati, PNG and Hong Kong at 1% each.
For more information:
Jason Keating
Templeton Ginger
Tel: +61 493 107 029
Email: development@templeton.net.au