Meet the high flyers in the world of vegetables
The owners of one of Australia’s largest potato, carrot and onion farms are going to great heights to ensure success. Here’s how they do it.
WANT to know the secret to running one of Australia’s largest potato, carrot and onion farms?
Maximise efficiency by owning a plane and have a pilot’s licence, advised Mark Pye, managing director of The Pye Group.
With a business that includes 32,000ha across 30 farms in Victoria and South Australia, with offshoot companies Zerella Fresh and Parilla Premium Potatoes, as well as a 22,000ha family cattle, sheep and dairy farm Rushy Lagoon in Tasmania (shared with his father Alan), Mark said the only way to keep on top of the operation was by the air.
“I have a Cessna I use weekly to get around the farm,” said the 53-year-old who got his wings in 1994, and whose daughter Renee just got her pilot’s licence to also help oversee farm operations.
“There are airstrips either on the farm or close to and it makes my time much more efficient.
“If I have a meeting with supermarkets or other customers I can be back at the packing shed in 90 minutes, otherwise it would be a three-hour drive, and we also fly our agronomists around too.”
Mark and his wife Fiona’s success has been on the rise since they moved to South Australia in 1990 from New Zealand, where his family continues to run the separate but similar horticultural company, the Pye Group.
Mark started with 250ha in the Mallee and within two years it had expanded to 2000ha. Today The Pye Group generates more than $100 million a year.
HOT POTATO
THE business grows 120,000 tonnes of potatoes, including for McCain, Smiths chips, and 80,000 tonnes of washed potatoes, which equates to 17 per cent of Australia’s washed potato market, selling to supermarkets, with about 3 per cent exported to Asia.
Potatoes are grown year-round in about six varieties, including their famous Spud Lite low-carb variety, to which they have the Australian rights. They harvest 1500 tonnes a week.
The Pyes’ next biggest commodity is onions.
They grow 50,000 tonnes a year, equivalent to 27 per cent of Australia’s onion market.
Most onions — grown in nine varieties — are harvested December to April, sold wholesale and retail through supermarkets, with up to 800 tonnes a year exported to Asia.
About 40,000 tonnes of carrots (24 per cent of the market) are grown in six varieties, harvested year-round, sold through the major supermarkets and with up to 600 tonnes exported to Asia. annually.
The Pye farms also have cereal crops, with a total 10,000-15,000 tonne annual yield in wheat, barley and hay, averaging three tonnes/ha for cereals, generally sold to feedlots.
In addition they have 3500 Merino-cross ewes, with lambs weighing 45-60kg liveweight, sold to various buyers.
From their herd of 200 Angus they sell steers to supermarkets at 550-600kg liveweight.
Given the vast size of the enterprise, what is Mark’s management ethos?
“Our family philosophy is think big and keep it simple. Instead of growing just 1ha of this and 1ha of that and 10 different things, we prefer to specialise in large volumes,” he said.
“For us it’s a numbers game. With that volume we get the right, specialist equipment and the best technology in the world.
“I travel the world frequently to see what the bigger, better, more professional growers are using in terms of technology. Automation is a big part of our business.
“Our starting point is the seed, bringing in our own varieties, finding a point of difference, whether it’s yield, quality, taste, water efficiency, quick growing, less inputs, always looking for an edge.”
NEW BEGINNINGS
MARK said in each commodity, for the past 12 years he had brought into Australia about four new varieties a year for trialling, with a 5 per cent success rate considered lucky, “like buying a lotto ticket”.
While they grow some publicly available vegetable varieties, Mark said they preferred plant breeder’s rights for a marketing edge.
One of his big successes was Maranca, the low-carb Spud Lite, launched in 2015, which grows from planting to harvest in 110 days, uses 30 per cent less water than most potato varieties, less fertiliser inputs and loves the heat of the Mallee, which can get up to 50C.
“When a customer buys a bag of potatoes from the supermarket it could have product from five or six suppliers, making consistency difficult,” said Mark, who owns the exclusive Australian rights to the Dutch Maranca.
“Whereas with Spud Lite the experience is consistent.”
Renee, who at 26 is in charge of marketing and product development, said they were working on a new concept with smaller, sweeter potatoes that could be ready after microwaving for eight minutes, and would be sold with a disc of flavoured butter.
“The Australian market generally follows the US and European markets and they want a smaller, more convenient potato,” said Renee, one of three Pye children, but the only one so far working on the farm.
“We’re also hoping to release a similar concept in carrots: small, sweet, microwavable and sold with perhaps honey butter.”
GROW FOR IT
LATEST growing techniques are also used in paddocks, where drones harness infra-red technology to manage crops.
The Pyes have also installed computer-controlled, variable rate pivot irrigators, which use 25 per cent less water than conventional pivots.
“For instance, if the soil is shallower, the computer mapping will apply less water,” Mark said.
When the family first established the farms, they opted to access “reliable” irrigation water from the Murray Group Limestone Aquifer, rather than the Murray River which “made us nervous”, a decision they do not regret.
The Pye Group has three packing sheds for each commodity, with the onion shed at Parilla — the home property — receiving the most recent upgrade three years ago.
Each shed has camera technology for grading and sizing.
Once washed, packed and stored, produce is transported seven days a week, 5am-5pm, with the company also operating Parilla Transport with its 12 B-doubles and four smaller trucks between packing sheds, but using contractors to truck to supermarkets.
While Mark said he had no plans to retire, he has most recently purchased 30ha in McLaren Vale, with a first vintage next year.
“Maybe it’s for my retirement plan and I enjoy a drop of red. There’s even a nice airport there only 30 minutes out of town,” he said.
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