North Queensland growers discuss new business partnerships in Japan

Bowen’s famous fruits and veggies and their producers have gone all the way to Asia to share a taste of North Queensland with a market of 125 million people.

Bowen’s famous fruits and veggies and their producers have gone all the way to Japan to share a taste of North Queensland with a market of 125 million people. See all the details about the trip. Picture: Contributed

Bowen’s famous fruits and veggies and their producers have gone all the way to Japan to share a taste of North Queensland with a market of 125 million people.

North Queensland horticultural growers have taken part in a four-day trip as part of an agricultural trade delegation led by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to meet with major wholesale and retail buyers to discuss increasing exports.

The delegation has discussed a partnership with Yaoko, a prominent Japanese supermarket chain with more than 200 stores in the Greater Tokyo area.

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association CEO Ry Collins said the growers joined the delegation to Japan all managed to generate ‘significant’ business with Japanese partners.

“This delegation has been a phenomenal opportunity to put North Queensland’s world-class produce on the global stage,” Mr Collins said.

“My understanding is they got enough orders from the trip there to basically fully use what airfreight is available to them between now and February.” Mr Collins said about exports from growers in the Cairns area.

Fresh produce promotion at Tokyo supermarkets as part of the Taste of Queensland project. Picture: Contributed

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association president Carl Walker, who also owns Bowen based-farm Phantom Produce was representing the Whitsunday region on the delegation to Japan.

“We made the first steps to building a relationship with Japanese importers,” he said.

Mr Walker said there was huge potential for growers in North Queensalnd to be able to supply some of the 60 per cent of fresh produce Japan exports for its consumers.

“For us personally there’s nothing set in concrete yet, but it’s an ongoing work in progress.”

Tokyo’s Ota Fresh produce market as part of the Taste of Queensland trip. Picture: Contributed

Mr Collins said communication with Japanese counterparts was one of the “biggest challenges” of the trip, with a couple of stand-alone meetings the Gumlu Growers association had with Japanese businesses that were a real challenge for them to communicate the value of their produce and face language barriers.

“We met with a company called Salad Club … they manufacture a range of mostly pre-made, prepacked salad and food products,” Mr Collins said.

“They already use some products that come from Queensland and … we presented our products to see if they could incorporate that into some of their process foods.

Bowen Gumlu Growers Association general manager Ry Collins and president Carl Walker at Walker Farms. Picture: Kirra Grimes

“We met with a company called Ojie Fibre solutions, which a lot of North Queensland companies already buy their boxes and packaging from for their produce.

“They have an interest in setting up a manufacturing facility in North Queensland to make it easy to service the North Queensland market.”

Mr Collins also mentioned that while they were in Japan, they went on a meeting with Tokyo University to discuss opportunities of agriculture research in the Whitsundays.

“They are looking at a couple of projects that they want to do in a tropical climate,” he said.