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.