Citrus grower and chair of Citrus Australia, Tania Chapman, said she wanted consumers to know when they can get local produce and to eventually treat oranges and mandarins like peaches and mangoes: something you can only get at certain times of the year.
"We're in season from basically the start of April coming from Queensland, all the way through to December, so it's actually only a very short window that we don't have Australian citrus available," she said.
She said that stores wanting to have every piece of produce available throughout the year was hurting business. When the season ends in Australia stores are required to import from other countries, with a sometimes noticeable drop in quality.
"We know that if somebody has a bad experience from eating a piece of citrus that it actually pushes them out of the market for six weeks minimum, if they come back at all," she said.
She said one of the things the Australian industry prided itself on was to grow the best quality citrus it could — which was sometimes the best in the world.
"We need to ensure that 'brand citrus' is protected so that people want to buy our produce," she said.
source: abc.net.au
