Burdekin, Bowen and Mareeba mangoes ripen in unison, causing huge headaches for farmers

Mango growers across NQ are bracing for terrible prices as a mango glut hits the wholesale market. Farmers say major supermarkets aren’t helping the matter.

This mango season was meant to be Queensland’s best in years, with growers preparing to harvest 11 million trays of the fruit.

But a glut of quickly ripening mangoes across the Burdekin, Bowen and Mareeba areas has sent the market value of the fruit plummeting.

Burdekin mango picker and roadside seller Henry Petersen said this was one of the biggest mango disasters he’s seen.

“The Brisbane wholesale market this week has seen many tray prices collapse to an average of $8 or $12 per tray,” Mr Petersen said.

“It’s not worth packing fruit at $10 a tray.”

Mango man Henry Petersen with fruit picker Dion Henaway in Charters Towers. Mr Petersen said he’s been slashing prices at his roadside stall.

Mr Petersen said rain and excessive heat ripened the Bowen mango crop extremely quickly across a large area.

“The market has totally collapsed and we’re only in the first week of December,” he said.

“This is the follow up to that record-breaking crop they reckoned would be 11 million trays.

“Well half will be on the ground.”

Mr Petersen said he was slashing prices at his roadside stall and practically gave away half his product in Charters Towers recently because he didn’t want to bring it home.

Peter Le Feuvre said his farm would be slowing down its packing shed by week’s end because the market price would drop below the cost of production soon.

Giru mango grower Peter Le Feuvre said growers were capable of adapting to the mango rush, but retailers created a unworkable bottle neck.

“The major retailers, the system they’ve created doesn’t cope with these volumes anymore,” Mr Le Feuvre said.

“They used to lower the price and sell trays when there was a lot of fruit around, but now they’d rather make a big profit margin so they hold the high price and don’t sell bulk.

“They don’t help push the fruit through at all.”

Picking and sorting mangos at Deane Farms at Horseshoe Lagoon. Daniel Le Feure from Deane Farms. Picture: Evan Morgan

Mr Le Feuvre’s farm Corrick Plains sells into the wholesale market - avoiding major retailers Woolworth and Coles.

Woolworths said they source the ‘vast majority’ of their mangoes directly from growers and offer 10kg discounted value trays in select stores.

“Last week we sold a record number of mangoes, and demand is expected to grow as we approach Christmas,” a spokesperson said.

Picking and sorting mangos at Deane Farms at Horseshoe Lagoon. Picking and sorting mangos at Deane Farms at Horseshoe Lagoon. Darcie Thomas sorts mangos before they are boxed . Picture: Evan Morgan

As the market price continues to drop, Corrick Plains is getting ready to slow down the packing shed by week’s end.

“We’re not packing as much fruit because we expect the market to go below the cost of production soon,” Mr Le Feuvre said.

“A lot of the fruit on the trees is going soft and you can’t put soft fruit in trays anyway.

“We can either leave it to fall or send it to juice.”

The average mango season is six to seven weeks, with the majority of a farm’s fruit picked in three weeks.

Mr Le Feuvre said it was not uncommon for mangoes to come on in a rush, but this summer multiple mango regions were ripening at the same time.

“What’s different is Burdekin and Bowen are having their glut at the same time as the Mareeba tablelands,” he said.

“It’s a big crop in a short time.”

Originally published as Burdekin, Bowen and Mareeba mangoes ripen in unison, causing huge headaches for farmers