An Australian stone fruit producer has conceded this summer has been quite a challenge for production due to the wet weather across the growing regions.
Mattina Fresh National Sales Director, Tom Panna says that the rain came right in the middle of the season not just for their location but the category as a whole.
"We had rain over three weeks that hit at the wrong time," he said. "When the fruit was going from soft to hard stone when it was in that transition, we had buckets of rain. There were days where there was anywhere from 40-90mil of rain. It created a lot of quality challenges such as both open and closed split stone. For the peak period of the middle of the season, from a volume perspective, we have seen a lot of decreases in pack-outs. Mother nature got us at the wrong time - and it is industry-wide, it is not just a Mattina Fresh or Cobram situation."
Mr. Panna explained that last season, premium quality pack-outs were around 85 per cent on average, but this year it is hovering around 50 per cent. That means that there has also been a lot more focus on the domestic market than export.
"There have been some real gaps and shortages, predominately around yellow-flesh peach and nectarines," he said. "They seem to have been affected more than the white-fleshed fruit, which seemed to be able to take the rain a lot better. From an export perspective, people have been far more critical of the fruit and the varieties that they are going to pack for overseas. People are making sure that the best product they do have is ending up offshore, but there is definitely a lot more fruit being thrown out to achieve that. We have always focused on the domestic market as a backbone for our business and will continue to do that, but it's definitely disappointing going through all the right processes pre-season in the orchard and then mother nature decides she's going to throw a curve ball. It's a mental challenge."
But he is hopeful the worst of the challenges are over and there is still some good fruit on the trees to finish out the season, adding that the rain did provide some benefits elsewhere across the farm.
"On the other hand, being citrus and pear growers as well, you have to take the good with the bad," Mr Panna said. "The negative out of the stone fruit is a positive for citrus and pears because it gave the trees a really good watering, and good hit of nitrogen to get some good fruit size in the other categories. We are looking at a far more positive back end to the season; there are a solid six weeks left on peaches and nectarines and still two and a half on plums. But for peaches and nectarines, we're confident the pack-outs are going to be better and we don't have to see the same amount of fruit being dumped that we are packing."
He added that a lot of the varieties still remaining this season are from the US-based Burchell breeding program, including the Snow Flame and Snow Flare and Summer Flare and Flame varieties, which Mr. Panna described as "high-performing varieties" for flavor and size.
"The consumer doesn't see the challenges but we definitely see it from a profitability perspective at our end," he said. "But the consumers still get the best product because we make sure we grade as we can to filter out the rain-affected pieces of fruit."
Mattina Fresh is also undergoing development on the citrus side of the business, building a new facility that is a dedicated citrus packhouse that is fully automated from a sizer to a sorting table and box fillers which will be up and running by the first week of April, where there will be a grand opening to kick off their season.
For more information
Thomas Panna
Mattina Fresh
Phone: +61 419 315 030
thomas.panna@mattinafresh.com.au