Koala Farms: Vegetables and salads the main dish at Gatton, Queensland

VEGETABLES and salad are far from side dishes for Koala Farms. They are front and centre of a dynamic horticulture business serving it up to households across Australia.

New leaf: Anthony Staatz founded Koala Farms in 1995 when he took over his family farm at Gatton in Queensland. He now runs it with wife Diane.

2017 HORTICULTURE FARMER OF THE YEAR FINALIST

KOALA FARMS

Anthony and Diane Staatz

GATTON, QLD

VEGETABLES and salad are far from side dishes for Koala Farms. They are front and centre of a dynamic horticulture business serving it up to households across Australia.

Koala Farms was founded in 1995, when Anthony Staatz took over his fifth-generation family farm at Gatton in Queensland’s fertile Lockyer Valley region.

It started off with 80 hectares and three staff growing seasonal potatoes and onions for local markets.

Fast forward more than 20 years and it now covers 550 hectares spread across five properties in southern Queensland with 50 permanent staff producing 120-150 pallets of produce, mostly lettuce, a day.

The business produces about 10 products year-round, including baby leaf and cos lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and occasional lines of pumpkins, cabbage and melons.

Iceberg lettuce is Koala Farm’s biggest line, planting about 55,000 per hectare, with an annual average total of 10 million. There is also a nursery that produces 500,000 plants a week.

About 70 per cent of product is sold to Fresh Select at Werribee in Victoria, which supplies direct to supermarket giant Coles and is sold up and down the east coast.

The remainder is sold to Harvest Freshcuts for processing and packaging, as well as wholesale on the east coast.

Anthony, 49, who works with wife, Diane, and was named the 2017 AUSVEG grower of the year, said there was no silver-bullet solution underpinning this growth and success.

“It’s rarely one thing that makes or breaks you,” Anthony said.

“It’s efficiencies throughout the supply chain that give you a competitive advantage, such as relationships, a focus on value to the customer — rather than such things as leveraging as much margins as you can get.

“If we’ve seen an opportunity, we’ve taken it.” And shown their real vegie might.

Caption: New leaf: Anthony Staatz founded Koala Farms in 1995 when he took over his family farm at Gatton in Queensland. He now runs it with wife Diane (inset).