Blueberry and prosciutto pizza

Blueberry and prosciutto pizza

• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced

• 125g blueberries

• 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil

• 300g marinated danish fetta, drained, mashed

• 4 pieces Indian Naan

• 1/2 cup pizza blend shredded cheese

• 6 slices prosciutto, torn

• 1 cup watercress sprigs

Step 1
Preheat oven to 240°C. Place 2 large baking trays in the oven. Combine the onion, blueberries and oil in a medium bowl. Season.

Step 2
Spread the fetta over 1 side of each naan bread. Sprinkle with pizza cheese and top with the blueberry mixture. Carefully remove the hot baking trays from the oven. Line with baking paper. Transfer the naan bread to the baking trays. Bake, swapping the trays halfway through cooking, for 10-15 mins or until the naan bread are golden and the blueberries start to collapse.

Step 3
Place the pizzas on serving plates. Top with prosciutto and sprinkle with watercress. Season with pepper and serve immediately.
Preheat oven to 240°C. Place 2 large baking trays in the oven. Combine the onion, blueberries and oil in a medium bowl. Season.
Spread the fetta over 1side of each naan bread. Sprinkle with pizza cheese and top with the blueberry mixture. Carefully remove the hot baking trays from the oven. Line with baking paper. Transfer the naan bread to the baking trays. Bake, swapping the trays halfway through cooking, for 10-15mins or until the naan bread are golden and the blueberries start to collapse.
Place the pizzas on serving plates. Top with prosciutto and sprinkle with watercress. Season with pepper and serve immediately.

SOURCE: Recipe available at Coles 

Quick Relaxation Tips

The Black Dog Institute has provided a list of guidelines outlining different styles of relaxation techniques that appeal to different people.

River Run Horticultural Update - Bep Pera

We are thrilled to announce the exciting re-development of blocks 1, 2, 4 and 8 – all of which are to be planted with Eureka Gold in April! Eureka Gold is a special varietal to our team and we are certain that it will prove equally as special to the community. This is a huge milestone for our organisation and one we are beyond proud to report. 

 We are look forward to seeing the outcome from this amazing re-development.

Work Health & Safety - Rose-Anna Bown

Each year Safe Work Australia release data on injuries and fatalities in the workplace for the year prior. In Nov 2022, the latest data was updated.

The data is a reminder of the need to ensure yourself and others safety when at work. Again, agriculture has featured in the top three industries where fatalities have occurred. Training, supervision and continually working with teams to make tasks safer, are the continual improvement models that drive down risks and reduce instances of injuries and incidents.

International Update - Mano Babiolakis

Spotlight on our project in India.
 
In February this year – we were fortunate enough to spend 5 days with all of our new partners and directors in India. To date we have 40 hectares planted and are ¾ of the way through the season – we have harvested and sold ~250 tons and will finish the season ~350 tons – which has been a great result – given that > 25 hectares were only planted in March / April last year!
 
We are currently planting a further 60 hectares and will be up to close to 100 hectares fully planted by the end of April. We have 3 farms in total across the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Eureka Sunrise beginning of the season

With Nicolas Moller (Chairman of Hortifrut) and Bobby Yavari (CEO Hortifrut Asia Pacific)

Traditional welcome by IG International for the group!

Harvesting at the Amarwara Farm!

One of the Independent Sellers in Mumbai – traditionally never sold blueberries – now part of the growth in blueberry sales!

New farm in Multai – building one of the reservoirs!

News from Marketing - Joshua McGuiness

It’s that strange part of the year when prices continue to increase in-store, and we collectively find ourselves purchasing average fruit for the family at astronomical prices. However, as growers, we find this very frustrating as we get our best fruit for average prices, and this is simply due to the supply and demand factors at play. 

So, what’s expected to happen in the coming weeks for Berries?

Blueberries: Due to ongoing weather issues, we are heading into an earlier-than-expected lull, with NZ volumes expected to be much lower in the coming weeks. Interestingly, we are starting to see some volume coming from the Coffs Coast region with Opi (1111s), and whilst it’s not a large amount, it’s reflective of what we are expecting this season. Whilst we do expect some rain in the coming months. The three-monthly long-range forecasts for Rainfall highlight that we expect a drier-than-normal autumn. Whilst the coastal areas are forecasting a slightly higher % (compared to the rest of the country), we are expected to have a much better pollination season vs 2022 and 2021. This means we could have a harvest like in 2018/2019, where lower rain and warmer weather bought on earlier volume. 

We expect this to ramp up in 10-12 weeks, whereas, in 2022, we didn’t see much volume until late August / early September.

Raspberries: There has been a lot more volume compared to last year over the last four weeks, but this seems to slow down with the cooler Tasmanian weather slowing down the production of Raspberries; we can expect prices to increase until the Coffs Coast region starts producing more volume in the coming 6-8 weeks. Volumes are slowly increasing out of the region. With the Yarra Valley experiencing some warmer days and nights in the coming two weeks, we could see an uptick in the region, but also pulling forward production for 7-10 days. They will be experiencing a hot (day and nights) finish to March, which may not be unseasonal for a day or two, but for the length of time vs median that is forecasted, it is very unseasonal. Expect prices to increase in the coming week, but it will flat line soon as demand in retail will dictate whether it can push any higher.

Strawberries: Whilst the market has been expecting additional fruit in the next week, it feels like it could be a few days behind the original forecast. Several growers have indicated much fruit on the plant; however, the size has significantly dropped off with plants starting to tire. So, what we were expecting in additional fruit might be offset by the lack of size. In addition, we expect demand for Strawberries to remain high as they will be the cheapest in the berry category. This may force the price up a little faster than what we expect, as there will be many people trading into the category. We should see ok volumes and a flattening of the price before we see farms start to turn over blocks in preparation for next year and the wait before the QLD season starts. There are also some plant supply issues that will slow up the start of the QLD season, which will also see a long lull between May and July as planting is well behind where the state has expected to be at this point.

Blackberries: Falling away quickly after some record weeks, we are in a similar transition to the Coffs Coast region that we see in Raspberries. Expect prices to push up a little more and ultimately, demand will dictate how high retail will go in the coming weeks as we wait for northern production to start again.

A message from our Managing Director Andrew Bell

Hello to you all!
A lot has happened since our last Newsletter in September of 2022. 

I recently attended Fruit Logistica in Berlin, and other than the minus-five-degree weather it was nice to have my first overseas trip since before Covid started. The reason I started this write-up on my trip to Berlin was that it was a great reminder that it is a very large world for berries out there, with lots of interesting things going on. We are in somewhat of a bubble here in Australia, given our proximity to most of the major markets and given our borders are closed for inbound fruit other than from New Zealand. Despite this fact, Australia is indeed driving the blueberry industry worldwide in terms of genetics programs, particularly ourselves, Costa and OzBlu (based in Western Australia).

I had the opportunity to meet with our licensees from all around the world and to sample products from many breeding programs. It is my humble opinion that our varieties are still considered best in class, but other programs are working hard to catch up with large crunchy berries becoming the norm. Sunrise is now considered the benchmark for blueberries, particularly off the back of the amazing sweet flavour and agronomic performance for growers.

During the trip, I had the pleasure of spending time with the team from Hortifrut, who are our new partners in India. They are indeed excited by how our blueberries are performing, despite some of the challenges that come about in farming in such an environment. The key varieties are Masena and Sunrise, which are both performing very well.

In other exciting news, I spent some time amongst our new raspberry breeding program with the team. It looks like we are off to a promising start and it is clear that we have started with a very good base of germplasm. Some of the selections are looking very good and eat very well. It will be an exciting day soon when we see our own raspberries on the shelves at the supermarket. 

We recently settled on the shed next door to the packing shed in South Lismore. This is an important purchase for us as it further unlocks our potential to grow in the Northern Rivers. The plan is to establish the shed as an additional cold store, to make our boxes and to set up a Distribution Centre to allow us to prepare orders and send them directly to our customers. You should see work start to commence in the coming months. You may have also seen recently media that we were successful in our application for a flood grant. Some of the grant is going to be going to flood proofing the existing shed in Habib drive, which will commence later this year.

I was very pleased to see our blackberry trials at Tabulam recently and hear that the team has started to harvest some fruit. This along with the four hectares of raspberries going in at Crystal Park later this year is an important milestone for us in looking to flatten out our labour requirements throughout the year. It will also help us to retain key staff given we will have work for longer periods throughout the year.

Finally, the longer range weather forecasts look promising, after a few years of challenging conditions. With any luck, this will set us up for a good year on the farming side of things. Although this of course means that the entire industry should have higher volumes across the board, which presents its own challenges. Fortunately we play in a premium space which separates us from the standard offering sold by most growers.

Mountain Blue becomes sponsor of the Lismore Westpac Helicopter.

Mountain Blue has recently become a sponsor of the Lismore Westpac Helicopter service under the "Helicopter Collective" program. Last week, Aaron and I were lucky enough to visit the base of the Lismore Westpac Helicopter and meet a team member from the rescue operations team.

We are all extremely grateful to have this opportunity and are delighted to be associated with such an esteemed organisation. We look forward to our continued partnership.