Australian grower Costa Group, is to sell some avocado farms and focus instead on berries, citrus fruits and exports to China as it attempts to recover from La Niña rain bombs that hammered farmers and destroyed crops last year.
Costa Group’s interim chief executive Harry Debney said the company was looking at “trimming” the avocado business, which has been unprofitable for two straight years and now makes up only 5 per cent of the ASX-listed company’s revenue reports https://www.smh.com.au
Australia’s biggest avocado grower will be forced to reduce its avocado operations after two straight years of losses.
“It’s challenging,” Debney said after revealing the company’s statutory net profits had slid 10 per cent. “We’ve done a major deep-dive into all our farms, we’ve identified a number of lower-yielding farms which we will probably scale back, or even divest.”
Australia had been in oversupply of the avocado for years, driving low prices, before heavy rain and floods inflicted further damage on the crops.
Costa will reduce its avocado operations and instead lean into its mushroom, berries, tomatoes and export businesses.