Jumbo blueberries key to WA farm Western Berry's plans for major expansion
West Australian-bred blueberries are extra large and heavy. (ABC News: Kate Forrester)
Demand for extra-large blueberries is expected to help Western Australia's largest blueberry farm quadruple in size over the next five years.
Key points:
- A WA blueberry farm plans to massively increase production
- Advances in blueberry breeding has increased the size of the fruit from 1-2 grams to 10 grams
- Efforts are being made to access new markets for blueberries in Vietnam
Derek Fisher established the Western Berry company on an existing olive farm near Gingin, north of Perth, in 2012.
Blueberries have proved much more lucrative than olives, and now the family company has 65 hectares of blueberry bushes, with a plan to add another 40 or 50 hectares each year for the next five.
Advances in local blueberry breeding have increased the size of fruit from 1 or 2 grams to more than 10 grams each.
Derek's son Marek Kwiecien-Fisher said the quality and size of the West Australian-bred berry varieties had provided the confidence to pursue the rapid expansion program.
"The Guinness World Record is currently at 18.6 grams and is from a breeder in WA," he said.
"At 18.6 grams, one 125-gram punnet would end up with seven berries in it.
"If we can provide that to the whole country, why wouldn't you plant this many berries?"
Derek Fisher established Western Berry at Gingin, north of Perth, 11 years ago. (ABC News: Kate Forrester)
First mechanical harvester for WA
In the past two months, the Western Berry company has started using a mechanical harvester from the United States, the first of its kind being used on blueberries in West Australia.
Across the world, most blueberries are harvested by hand.
In Australia, harvesting makes up a significant proportion of the cost of production at about $6 a kilogram.
Mr Fisher said mechanical harvesting had reduced that number to less than a dollar.
A recently purchased mechanical harvester is the first to be used on blueberry farms in WA. (ABC News: Kate Forrester)
"At this point in time it is costing us about 50 cents a kilo," he said.
"These are on young plants we believe that will probably halve again.
"We've only got one [mechanical harvester] at the moment, but after this season we will be ordering one or two more.
"We've got eight new varieties of blueberries here. Most of them have been bred for machine harvesting."
At the moment Western Berries employs 180 people and Mr Fisher said mechanisation would not put them out of work.
"We'll still have a lot of workers early in the season. When there's not a lot of ripe fruit on the plants we will hand harvest.
"Mid-season we'll probably move machine harvesting."
The appeal of large fruit
The company started exporting berries to South-East Asia by air earlier this year and is currently shipping 20 pallets a week.
Mr Kwiecien-Fisher said consumers in Hong Kong and Singapore were particularly attracted to large fruit.
"Their jumbo specification is 18 millimetres plus.
"We're providing fruit at 25mm-plus in a super-jumbo package, which is unheard of, for — to be quite frank — unheard of returns."
The Western Berry company sends 20 pallets of blueberries a week to South-East Asia. (ABC News: Kate Forrester)
Blueberries to Vietnam
Currently, only 2 per cent of Australian blueberries are exported.
In an effort to access additional markets, Berries Australia recently participated in an Australian government trade delegation to Vietnam.
Marek Kwiecien-Fisher and Derek Fisher are expecting to triple the size of their of their opperation at Western Berry over the next five years. (ABC News: Kate Forrester)
Executive director Rachel Mackenzie said new markets would enable Australian growers to get a good price for berries in times of peak supply.
"One of the reasons why Vietnam is such an ideal opportunity for us is at the moment they get their blueberries from New Zealand and the US," Ms Mackenzie said.
"Our peak season is counter seasonal to those countries, so we would be taking the opportunity during our peak season to move some of these blueberries offshore."