Piñata Farms will start harvesting its Sunshine Coast raspberries in May, and it's looking forward to a strong crop after what Rebecca Scurr describes as a relatively favourable summer for plant growth.
"We purposely skew our volume to be harvested from May through to October predominantly," Scurr says. "All berries are a summer crop by nature, but in Australia, because of our diverse growing conditions, we can actually grow summer crops in winter."
© Piñata Farms
On the Sunshine Coast, winter conditions more closely resemble a UK or Tasmanian summer. "It'll be way too hot to grow them when it's super warm," she says of the Queensland summer. "It's not good for the sweetness, but it's also not good for the size. They just ripen so quickly that the fruit size is quite small."
The margins for success are narrow in raspberries, with the fruit rewarding care and control in its growing. Pinata grows in coconut husk substrate rather than soil, effectively operating a hydroponic system. "There are no reserves in the soil," Scurr says. "We control exactly to the millilitre what they're watered and how they're fed. That gives us a great opportunity to get that recipe exactly right."
The crop now heading towards harvest has been grown through the summer under polytunnels. While not picked in the hotter months, the plants must withstand them. High humidity and wet weather can exacerbate pest pressure, particularly in protected systems.
"We've had a bit of that this year," Scurr says. "But definitely not in comparison to a summer like last year, where it was really, really wet and quite warm. It's been warm but certainly not outside of what we would deem acceptable conditions."
As a result, she sees no immediate red flags. "For all intents and purposes, it's looking like there's no reason why the local raspberry season for us shouldn't be quite good."
© Piñata Farms
Raspberries, she notes, are structurally different from many other crops. Growers can plant and harvest an initial "tip crop" within months, but there are multiple growing types and management approaches that can influence timing and yield. That flexibility makes the right choice important.
Genetics is the starting point. Pinata Farms owns half of Berry World Australia, a joint venture with BerryWorld, giving it access to proprietary breeding material. The company grows a single raspberry variety, Diamond Jubilee.
"In berries, the biggest factor is the actual variety itself," Scurr says. "The best grower in the world can't make a sour or small variety anything but sour and small. If you start with an excellent variety, you've got a chance."
Industry-wide, choosing good genetics has led to an improvement in raspberry quality and consistency. And the consequence has been growth. But Scurr says raspberries remain in a growth phase domestically. The business monitors household penetration, purchase frequency, and average purchase weight.
"In a perfect world, you want all three of those to be going up," she says. "You want more households buying, you want them to be buying more often, and you want them to be buying more each time they buy."
© Piñata Farms
With a domestic market that may not yet be fully mature, there's more opportunity in powering that growth than in looking to export. Rubus fruit offers challenges in fragility and strict protocols for imports. Not that Pinata won't ever consider it, just not right now.
"I definitely don't think it's because there are no opportunities out there," she says. "I just think they're quite difficult opportunities."
She'd like to see demand get closer to what it is in the UK. That'll need education, and above all, producing reliable and tasty fruit. "There is definitely space to grow," she says. "Fundamentally, it comes down to consistency."
Delivering fruit that meets expectations every time is the objective. "If we can be more and more consistent, that's how we build the category."
For more information:
Rebecca Scurr
Piñata Farms
Tel: +61 408 199313
https://www.pinata.com.au/
