The Pinata farm at Orielton, in South-East Tasmania is doing its bit to ensure Australians have berries every day of the year.
Taking advantage of Tasmania’s cool weather climate means that Pinata farms are able to stretch their harvest out all year round.
The restoration of a cow paddock to a high production raspberry and strawberry farm has been well underway since 2017 – and more is planned.
The company grows and harvests berries between Queensland to Tasmania and produces 15 million punnets of strawberries and 8 million punnets of raspberries each year.
Since the harvest in November, Pinata farms have packed nearly a million punnets of raspberries just on their Tasmanian farm alone and about 530 thousand punnets of strawberries.
Producing a huge sum of Australia’s berry’s means that expansion was needed to meet the constant growing demand of the palatable, fresh fruit.
Managing Director, Gavin Scurr said that the demand for berries is constantly growing and there would always be a market for it.
“The bulk of our berries go to the mainland, we supply Tasmania as well but it’s a small market compared, so our future expansions are actually for the mainland because that’s where the population is,” he said.
“We’re running half developed and we will do the next half over the next three years or so.
“When we first started here, we were just doing raspberries and this past summer is our first commercial crop of strawberries on the side.”
The farm is about 121 ha in size which is a sufficient land area to facilitate the expansion for the next three years.
They are currently building another 76 pollytunnels for strawberries to add to the 96 that already exist and 168 raspberry pollytunnels.
“The quality of the berries here are excellent because it’s better weather, it’s cooler,” Mr Scurr said.
“Berries don’t like heat so the weather here in Tassie is more what berries like.
“Cooler maximums and minimums, the days are longer because it’s further south, hence the plant grows for more hours of the day because there’s more light.”
The typically dry conditions in Tasmania during summer means the berries get a better shelf life compared to the humidity they get in Queensland.
Mr Scur, who was at Orielton last month, said that the first strawberry crop planted just last November had already exceeded their expectations on yield and with quality.
“For the same reason as raspberries, they’ve gone well, excellent flavour, good yield, good shelf life.”
The farm has produced 130 tonnes of strawberries and with another six weeks lefts in the season expecting to reach 150 tones.
With the current expansion works, the focus is solely on raspberries and strawberries for now. There is potential to do blackberries in the future as it is grown in the same conditions as raspberries.
Over last summer, there were about 85 to 90 people employed for harvest. The bulk of the labour spread through the harvest, packing and maintenance of the plants.
When the farm is fully developed there are expected to be around 200 employees.
“We don’t do anything in the winter and springs because it’s too wet. We do all the earthworks in summer, once we put the pollytunnels and covers up, we can work underneath that to finish them off,” he said.
“It’s sort of six months construction a year. We started in November and in a month or so we will finish some of the work and then we will re start again in November.”
On a typical warm day the berries are getting watered and fed up to 10-12 times a day.
The nicer growing conditions for berries in Tasmania means that they grow well in summer with the berries growing in Queensland for winter.
Mr Scurr said that between the two operations, they harvest berries everyday of the year.
“That’s why we’ve got the two farms, so that we can supply raspberries and strawberries everyday.
“As we get different varieties they get better. Berries are fantastic, they’re very convenient, you don’t have to peel them or cut them up.
“Global demand for berries is huge, that’s why berries are Australia’s largest valued crop.”
There are more dollars in berries sold compared to any other fruit in Australia. Mr Scurr said the costs of production have gone up significantly since Covid-19.
“Fertilisers have almost doubled compared to three years ago. Labour is up 30 per cent, everything has gone up.”
“Fresh fruit and vegetable are a supply and demand equation, if there’s plentiful of suppliers around, they’re cheap, if there’s not enough around they become more expensive.
“What we’re doing as growers is building scale so that the more we grow the cheaper it costs us per punnet to grow.
“Whether were growing one punnet or 10 million punnets, we still got to have a packing shed, we still have to have irrigation pumps and infrastructure.
“So the more volume we can put through that same infrastructure, the less it costs us per punnet.”
They have recently in the last years just changed their packaging to reduce plastic usage.
Because berries are a fragile fruit and for the reasons consumers want to see before they buy, plastic is impossible to eliminate.
Instead, they have reduced it as much as they could changing from the hard cover clip lids to a plastic seal. They are now packing with 30 percent less plastic.
The price for a punnet depends on the weather conditions and fluctuates in price accordingly. A price increase in berries was seen last year after the Queensland floods.
Mr Scurr said outside of these fluctuations, the price of berries tended to stay stable with strawberries and raspberries typically prices at $3 to $4 dollars a punnet.
“It is good value for the consumer for something that eats as well. People pay $5 dollars for a cup of coffee. I think to get a punnet of raspberries for $4 dollars is a bargain in my opinion,” Mr Scurr said.