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This large grower base, producing a broad range of varieties, allows MFC to extend supply of fresh citrus to meet customer requirements. The largest twenty suppliers deliver more than 50% of the company's intake. MFC packs out of a single, very large packing-house, located in Mildura in North West Victoria and employs 40 permanent staff and up to 150 casual staff to meet seasonal and shift requirements.
MFC packs 120,000 bins of Navels, 25-30,000 bins of of easy peelers as well as avocados, grapefruit and lemons.
All fruit which passes through the pack house is fully traceable back to the individual farm and any fruit arriving is inspected within 24 hours of harvest.
On arriving at the pack house the fruit is washed in a pre-treatment anti-fungicide, if required it can then be taken to the colouring room and treated with ethylene to even out the colour. This will only be done for fruit destined for the domestic market.
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Fruit from the pack house goes to both the domestic and export markets, mainly China, Hong Kong, Japan and other Asian markets as well as the USA and Europe.
MFC is one of the only packers in Australia to wash each bin every time it comes through the pack house. There is a Compac 8 line colour Vision sorter which takes multiple photos of each fruit, this line also has a brix grader which is used for certain customers for high brix programs.
Cartons are packed on the navel packing line using a suction system which pack up to 1,800 cartons per hour. MFC also has a dedicated lemon and mandarin line, which can pack up to 1,000 cartons per hour.
When the fruit has been sorted and checked for quality it is trucked to nearby Wakefields transport for quarantine inspection and container loading and sent by train to the port of Melbourne from where it is shipped to buyers in the port of Melbourne. Domestic fruit is consolidated separately and trucked across the country to supermarkets and wholesale markets.
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For more information:
Justin Lane
Mildura Fruit Company
Tel: +61 3 5021 1644
Email: jlane@mcf.com.au
www.mfc.com.au