Core values inspire growers to find ‘the next right thing’

“Looking the goods” should be all about produce quality and standards.

To Nic Giblett, work and family are intertwined on Newton Orchards. Picture: Daniel Carson

AS AN orchardist, Nic Giblett has one “critical” message to Australian consumers.

“We must stop eating with our eyes and appreciate local produce grown to strict standards,” she said.

Nic, a director of her family-run Newton Orchards in Manjimup southern Western Australia, has even created two social media hashtags: #choosethebruise and #chooseugly.

Newton Orchards — which yields 6 million kg of apples annually in nine varieties, sold to Coles, Woolies and independents — each year has about 1 million kg of waste.

She said given it costs about $1/kg just to grow apples — “which means every kilo we chuck out costs us $1” — four years ago the Newton family launched a range of value-add products from waste apples.

“It’s largely a cosmetic issue. They still taste great but they’re not perfect,” she said.

“Two decades ago consumers would have eaten them but not now.”

The value-add includes: Cloudy South apple juice, crushed in a nearby town and bottled in Perth; craft cider, sold under the Giants brand, also supplying craft cider makers with 500,000kg of apples; and finally Giants apple spirits and brandy. “If the commercial Australian cider industry didn’t import cider and instead used local product, it would take up five times the amount of apples currently produced here,” Nic said. “Those mass commercial cider manu­facturers are buying from countries that don’t have the same ethical growing requirements we do in this country.

“Because Australia is one of the most expensive countries to grow, due to rising costs such as labour, it’s hard for craft cider to compete with the commercial.”

EXPANDING VISION

NIC said juice and cider was about a 40 per cent return on production costs, adding that apples were a commodity item that consumers were reluctant to pay more for. “It’s not a profit item, but about clawing back some of the losses.”

Newton Orchards was started by Nic’s maternal grandfather and his brother in 1929 on the same Manjimup property. It was then left to five sisters, including Nic’s mum Maureen, but is now run by Nic, her father Harvey and brother Michael, who are members of the board, alongside a CEO, with 70 full-time staff and about 100 seasonal casuals.

Nic said 40 years ago the company sold their own juice at a profit and also had a lucrative export market to the UK.

With a changing, competitive market, the family has more recently expanded to seven properties, growing across a total 200ha, which reduces climatic risk.

They have expanded varieties to expand the harvest season, starting with royal gala in February, through to sundowner in late May/early June.

In addition over the past decade they have expanded into proprietary varieties of Kanzi, Bravo and Jazz.

About 20 per cent of their business is packing apples from several other growers, including packing under the Kanzi, Bravo and Jazz license agreements. The vast majority of apples are sold through the major supermarkets, as well as the Perth wholesale market, with just a small amount exported to Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia for the past two years.

The Gibletts also grow 15 tonnes of cherries annually, a boutique amount of pears, and avocadoes, which again reduces risk to the business.

CHANGING CLIMATE

NIC said while the price of apples has remained steady for years, the cost of production had not, which means innovating across the orchards annually. Apple trees reach full production at about year five, with a return on investment at year eight, then decline from year 25. They have been slowly replacing older trees that were grown in the older-style vase shape to new varieties grown high density in a two-dimensional single wall, which costs about $100,000/ha.

“The two-dimensional method has more trees per hectare than vase, as well as better fruit colour that is easier to pick,” said Nic, who returned to the farm 13 years ago after working as a journalist in community news.

“It’s also a growing method that works with robotic picking, which we will have to move to one day. Robotics has started overseas, but is still clunky and expensive.”

Trees are grown in rich to gravel loam and in the past received an annual average rainfall of 1000mm, which has more recently declined to about 700-800mm. Irrigation has changed from overhead to drip, with soil probes ensuring maximum water efficiency.

One of the farm’s greatest costs has been netting, with about 20 per cent of the orchard netted to stop birds, evaporation as well as hail (they lost almost half their crop on one farm last year from hail damage).

Nic said the changing climate was impacting trees considerably, not just in rainfall.

Extreme heat at the end of 2019 cooked fruit into “apple pies” on the tree.

Lenticel spot “we strongly suspect is linked to heat stress”.

“It causes a cosmetic spot on skin but does not affect taste or nutrition. Because people eat with their eyes this immediately makes apples seconds or in the throwaway pile.”

WASTE NOT

AT one stage Newton Orchards was organic but a black spot outbreak most likely brought in by a visiting worker means they lost their organic certification.

Although given southern Western Australia has limited disease pressures, they use considerably less inputs compared to most other growing regions in the world.

Despite the increasing costs and challenges in production, Nic said the family was determined to reduce its environmental footprint.

In the packhouse they have replaced plastic punnets with recycled cardboard and have also reduced their plastic wrap micron from 30 to 20, the lowest it can go.

“We have reduced plastic waste by almost 10 tonnes each year just through packaging alone.”

Apples are packed in 1kg punnets, and 1kg and 2kg bags, and from last year have been bagged for Coles’ I’m Perfect brand, “flawed-but-adored” produce to stop wastage. The family has also this year installed infra-red technology, which takes images inside the apple to ensure they aren’t brown inside, which again reduces waste.

“My motto is do the next right thing. We’re doing whatever we can afford to try and clean our environmental footprint as best as we can,” Nic said.

“It’s a non-negotiable, which is also driven by a financial edge.”