Mango madness as prices plummet to $1.50
Queensland’s mango farmers are taking a pre-Christmas hit to their bottom line as a glut of the fruit caused by warm weather across northern Australia sends prices plummeting.
City Beat
Don't miss out on the headlines from City Beat. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Queensland’s mango growers are taking a pre-Christmas hit to their bottom line as a glut of the fruit caused by warm weather across northern Australia sends prices plummeting.
The oversupply of product to the market as well as freight bottlenecks are causing headaches for the $200m industry in the lead up to Christmas.
The popular Kensington Pride variety were selling for only $1.50 each in some supermarkets, at least a dollar below the price needed for farmers to make a profit.
Gavin Scurr, of Pinata Farms, says that perfect growing weather across Northern Australia has caused a “convergence” resulting in too much fruit ripening at the same time.
“Mangoes are now selling below cost for farmers,” says Scurr, who grows the popular Honey Gold variety across farms in the Northern Territory and Queensland.
“Ideally the price should be around $2.50 to $3, which still is a good deal for the consumer, but also means there is something in it for the farmer.”
Queensland pineapple farmers are facing similar problems with extreme rainfall, which started in February and continued throughout the year, triggered a rush of premature plants with three-quarters of a year’s crops flowering early and all at once.
Scurr says that usually mangoes ripen in growing areas around Katherine, Mataranka and Darwin in the Northern Territory allowing time for the fruit to reach southern markets before farms in Mareeba and Bowen are ready to harvest their own crops.
“What has happened is that the weather has condensed the season across both regions,” he says. “Glut is a terrible word but there is certainly a good supply of all main varieties, including Kensington Pride, Calypso and R2E2.”
This mango season was meant to be Queensland’s best in years, with growers preparing to harvest 11 million trays of the fruit. But tonnes of quickly ripening mangoes across the Burdekin, Bowen and Mareeba areas sent the market value of the fruit plummeting.
Burdekin mango picker and roadside seller Henry Petersen, says it is one of the biggest mango disasters he’s seen.
“The Brisbane wholesale market has seen many tray prices collapse to an average of $8 or $12 per tray,” Petersen says. “It’s not worth packing fruit at $10 a tray.”
Petersen says rain and excessive heat ripened the Bowen mango crop extremely quickly across a large area.”
Pinata Farms’ Scurr says that thankfully international borders have reopened in time to allow for migrant farm workers to help with the harvest. “We currently have about 100 workers from Vanuatu helping not only with the mangoes but the pineapple harvest,” he says. Scurr says other hangovers from Covid-19 lockdowns remain, most notably a lack of truck drivers to take products to market. “The transport industry is really struggling with supply chain issues,” he says. “There are just not enough drivers.” A lack of packing pallets also was hitting the industry in the lead up to the crucial Christmas period.
The world’s leading pallets distributor, CHEP, told customers earlier this month to not hoard the crucial wooden pallets that are the backbone of the global supply chain – and return surplus or broken pallets directly to its offices – to help alleviate the growing pellets shortage.
Scurr says that the current over supply of mangoes will not last forever. Supplies will be tighter after Christmas providing some support for prices.
Founded by pineapple farmer Geoff Scurr at Wamuran in the 1960s, Piñata Farms is now operated by Geoff’s sons, Gavin and Stephen Scurr. It is the largest pineapple producer in Australia, one of the largest strawberry producers and holds the breeding rights to grow specialty Honey Gold mangoes, produced in every mainland state except South Australia.
Between Piñata Farms and some 30 third-party family farmers, the company has some 170,000 mango trees under cultivation, over 570 hectares in every mainland state except South Australia and sends up to 700,000 trays of mangoes to market each season.
Additional reporting by Daneka Hill and Jackie Sinnerton
On the road
Brett Wright has been appointed chief executive of the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia Qld-NT. Wright has spent more than 21 years leading state and national peak industry bodies in the heavy vehicle and automotive industries.
His most recent leadership position was as chief executive of Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia where he oversaw the transformation of a state association to peak national body.
A Fellow of the Australasian Society of Association Executives, he is a former member of the Queensland Government’s Ministerial Freight Council and a member of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s Industry Reference Forum.
He holds qualifications in governance and budgeting and business planning and is a board director of a children’s charity. Wright says there were strong linkages between the heavy transport industry and public works engineering.
“There’s connection between the two sectors, especially in the essential services space – by providing vital infrastructure and services to communities and individuals,” he says.
“I was attracted to this position by the organisation’s long history in providing excellent service and representation for the public works engineering sector.”
The body has supported the state’s public works professionals for 50 years by sharing knowledge, building networks and capability and advocating for the sector.
Ellume deal
Creditors of failed Brisbane Covid-19 testing firm Ellume have given the nod to $56m deal that will see the sale of the firm to Hough Consolidated.
Brisbane-based Ellume called in administrators FTI Consulting in August after a bid to take on the US market resulted in losses of more than $100m.
Founded in 2009 by Sean Parsons, the company rose to prominence with its rapid testing technology and large contracts with the US government.
Hough Consolidated says it will formally enter into a deed of company arrangement after Ellume creditors voted in support of their offer on Tuesday.
The agreement will see Hough secure the diagnostics company for $US38m to be paid to creditors and noteholders. Under the deal, larger noteholders can elect to roll their notes and remain invested in the business.
Hough Consolidated chief executive Jack Hough says the company has developed a proposal and business plan that will capitalise on the synergies between Hough and Ellume.
“Our plan includes continued manufacturing in Australia and the United States,” he says. The Hough offer also provides for a substantial line of credit to fund the further development of the business moving forward.
Hough and its related entities operate a diagnostics business that distributes rapid
antigen tests to both the point-of-care and self-test markets.
In March 2023, Hough will launch the first range of self-test rapid diagnostics to be available in supermarkets and pharmacies nationally, creating a new category of products based on their
experience with Covid-19 rapid tests.
Good drops
Two Queensland wine stores have been recognised with gold medals in the 2022 Wine Searcher Awards. Rosalie-based Wine Experience won gold for both its Australia and overall list of vintages as well as silver for its Piedmont list.
Bowen Hills-based Wineaway won a gold for its Piedmont range while three bronze medals were awarded to Wine Emporium at Newstead.
Wine Searcher is a web search engine enabling users to locate the price and
availability of a given wine and be directed to a business selling that wine. It is
most often referred to as the “Google for wine.”
Michael Nolan, the owner of Wine Experience, said he was pleased with the results and put it down to an enormous amount of hard work and dedication by his team who all share an absolute passion for wine. “We love what we do and we are so grateful to our client base for their support and sharing that passion with us,” says Nolan. More than 6800 wine stores worldwide take part in the awards.
Malaysian supermarket giant invests in agrifood tech fund
A strategic investment by growing Malaysian supermarket giant Segi Fresh has opened the door for innovative Australian start ups to expand into Asia.
Hutchies teams up with watchmaker Adina to reward staff
Construction giant Hutchinson Builders has teamed up with another Queensland business icon Adina Watches to recognise its long-serving workers.