Feijoa production continues growing in Western Australia
Five years ago, the small town, located three hours south of Perth, had just 300 trees between three growers. Now the town is understood to have more 10,000 feijoa trees between 18 growers, and that is just the start.
While WA is dominating the increase in plantings, the feijoa crop is growing all over the country. Produce Art director Rohan Bicknell, who wholesales feijoas domestically and internationally, said there was a lot of people getting excited about it.
"Because the fruit starts a lot earlier [in Queensland], it could be one of the first places in the southern hemisphere to have fruit."
He said from the amount of trees he had seen being planted, the Australian crop could increase from about 80 tonne a year to 800 tonne a year over the next decade, bringing it to the same size as the New Zealand crop.
Mr Bicknell said while there was a small demand for the fruit in Australia that was yet to be filled, he was unsure why so many people had got on the bandwagon and started growing the crop. He also mentioned his concern about a possible glut in the future if too many follow the trend.
"There is good sales at the moment with feijoas but there's a really small market for it at the end of the day and that could be filled up very quickly."
Those in industry are forecasting the price for feijoas in Australia to come down considerably in the next five years as more feijoas begin to come online, from about $15-$18 per kilogram to $8-$10kg.
Read more at abc.net.au
