One of Australia's leading pineapple growers has wrapped up the North Queensland season, with mixed results in a challenging season.
Piñata Farms growing season in the region runs from October to late February, and General Manager Tropicals, Stephen Scurr explains that the company had an excellent yielding crop in terms of size and quality, but the demand was not as strong as in previous years.
"There was nice uniform fruit, but unfortunately, there was low demand for pineapples, especially through the month of December," Mr Scurr said. "So, a great crop as far as growing them went but had great trouble trying to sell them. There was a bit more fruit around on the market, but the demand was just down across a lot of fruit crops. We aren't exactly sure why but think that maybe during the COVID surges people weren't buying as much fruit. When people do online orders or click and collect, there isn't as much fresh produce. Customers like to see the fruit in front of them. We have put it down to people getting their food online, and not going into the supermarket. So, if they see them on the shelf and the fruit is nice, they will grab them, but if people put them in the shopping bag for them, they aren't so keen."
Photos courtesy: Piñata Farms Facebook page
The company supplies fresh fruit mostly the supermarkets Coles and Woolworths, and local fruit shops, with very little supply going into food service and processing. The weather was also a little different this year, with fruit coming online around two weeks earlier than expected. Mr Scurr says that was because of a warm winter, which assisted the sweetness and quality of the fruit.
"It matured quicker when they were flowering," he explained. "They don't like cold, so the warmer the winters the better. We have changed a few of our growing practices as well, in terms of fumigation, as far as on-farm goes. We are just trying to get a better and healthier plant. If you look after the plant, they reward you back with a good piece of fruit. Warmer drier winters definitely play a part, but obviously, farmers are always tweaking things. We believe that it paid off this year with good quality and sizing."
In North Queensland, there are two hybrid varieties grown by Piñata Farms, the MD2 and 7350 for the earlier part of the season. The farm is now heading into the planting phase ahead of next summer's harvest.
"We are just waiting for some of the wet parts to dry out, and we are getting plants ready to go in the ground," Mr Scurr said. "Planting season will go until June and July; we will have a bit of quiet time for a few months after that and back into October again. We just want to encourage people to eat more pineapples, as it has been disappointing this year having such a nice crop, then you have to let things rot because we can't sell them. It's been a challenging year, but I don't think we are the only ones. It's just the way things go sometimes."
Meanwhile, the company has appointed Andrew McLaren as general manager post-harvest operations. Mr McLaren has more than 20 years’ fresh produce operations and production management experience in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. He is responsible for managing post-harvest processes at all Piñata locations in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania including delivering operational efficiencies, streamlining packing shed processes, optimising workforce use and ensuring the smooth flow of fruit along the supply chain. Prior to joining Piñata in February, Mr McLaren was production manager at GSF Fresh NZ, one of the largest fresh produce manufacturers in New Zealand. Originally from Melbourne, he is based at Wamuran, south-east Queensland.
For more information
Stephen Scurr
Piñata Farms
Phone: +61 7 5497 4295
[email protected]
www.pinata.com.au
