One of Australia's leading fruit producers is hoping to grow and develop the prominence of the Cara Cara orange in Australia.
Mattina Fresh produces stone fruit, citrus and pears in Northern Victoria and Southern New South Wales and will be ramping up citrus production in the coming seasons.
Mattina Fresh National Sales Director, Tom Panna says the Cara Cara variety hasn't really been marketed towards domestic sales, but there is a real opportunity going forward.
"Traditionally, the focus has been export, because it's a very sweet, well-travelling orange that has a pink inside," Mr Panna said. "Parts of Asia absolutely love it, but as an industry, we didn't look at what can we do to really engage the Aussie consumer. Our focus over the summer period from a citrus perspective is developing and working really closely with aligned retailers to bring Cara Cara to market. There has been a lot of it planted, mainly because of the export opportunities, but given the way the world is, export markets aren't what they were 4-to 5 years ago. They are depleting and deteriorating each year by small margins since COVID. This gives us an opportunity to harness in and really focus on giving the Aussies the right piece of fruit, which they have previously missed out on as farmers sent it offshore for a premium. Our motto has been to feed Australia first."
Mr Panna says it was the first season picking out of the company's developed citrus farm, so there weren't commercial volumes from each of the varieties - but the quality ticked all the boxes and was a success.
"Next year we are anticipating hitting those commercial volumes, which as a business we are really excited about," he said. "This year was more about refocusing our branding and getting the right product out through the centralised markets and working closer on an independent level. We were very happy with the quality that came from the Northern orchard, even though we only picked a couple of hundred bins per variety."
Mattina Fresh is well known for its stone fruit, and Mr Panna says the company was looking for alternatives to grow the business in the winter season to build a 12-month of the year consistent brand for fruit. Four years ago, Mattina Fresh began turning a stone fruit orchard into citrus production, in possibly the best location for it in Australia.
"Historically, we have ticked all the boxes in the other categories that we have been involved with from a quality perspective," he said. "We were renowned for producing high-quality grade product and with having the early stone fruit farm in Griffith, we thought why not develop that into a citrus farm, given the fact that that part of the Riverina is a fantastic growing region for citrus. It is arguably the best citrus-growing region in the country."
The company is currently installing a state-of-the-art grader and sizer from Reemoon, which will be up and running in January ahead of next season.
"Technology is just as important as the product in the field," Mr Panna said. "We are going down the path of automation, so pattern packers and automated netting and bagging machines. So, while we are looking to grow the winter side of the business, we are still very understanding of the current position and the cost of production and operation. Our business has gone down the path of spending the money initially, reducing the cost over time and having a fully automated system. It is about growing and also retaining staff, which is another important thing. From the orchard side of things, we will reward our full-time staff and keep them busy by growing the business and trade like summer during winter."
For more information
Thomas Panna
Mattina Fresh
Phone: +61 419 315 030
[email protected]