Flawed but tasty mangoes get the thumbs up from Coles

THEY might have a few blemishes but mangoes taste great even when they are less than perfect on the outside, says one of the biggest growers of the seasonal fruit in Australia.

SUPERMARKET giant Coles has extended its “I’m Perfect” fresh produce trial to mangoes allowing Queensland growers to boost their bottom line by selling slightly blemished fruit that had to previously be pulped or discarded.

Since launching the “I’m Perfect” trial in Victoria and South Australia in May, Coles’ customers have purchased more than 2.6 million kilos of imperfect fresh produce at discounted prices.

Manbulloo Mangoes boss Marie Piccone, said that blemished fruit that used to be offloaded for very little profit to juice processors could now be sold to Coles.

Ms Piccone, who oversees the company’s seven farms in Queensland and the Northern Territory, said that million of mangoes were sold to Coles each season particularly during the lead up to Christmas/New Year.

Coles said the “I’m Perfect” range had been extended nationally offering pre-packaged fruit and veggies with small cosmetic blemishes or with slightly odd shapes.

Ms Piccone said the Coles initiative was particularly helpful given Australian farmers were facing challenging conditions at the moment with drought, heatwaves and bushfires all impacting on crops.

She said thankfully Manbulloo could rely on an underground supply of water but it had to carefully manage harvesting to mitigate the impact of heat on its workers. “We are starting picking earlier in the day to avoid the worst of the heat,” she said.

She said the mango industry had faced consolidation in recent years as the costs of managing farms had increased.

Mango farmer Marie Piccoe inspects some of the fruit bound for Coles.

“There are about six companies now that represent 60-70 per cent of the market,” Ms Piccone said. “Consumers don’t want to pay too much and if a farm is too small they don’t have the efficiencies of scale. There are a lot of costs these days around food safety and human resources.” Manbulloo employs about 230 workers during peak periods, many of them from Samoa and Vanuatu under the seasonal workers program. “We have had the same people coming back for 10 years so its almost a generation,” she said.

She said the industry also had seen the introduction of new varieties including Honey Gold and Calypso. Manbullo is the largest producer in Australia of Kensington Pride mangoes, sometimes also known as the Bowen mango