A Victorian stone fruit grower says it has been fantastic to see a balance across the supply chain between the cost of production and keeping prices affordable, in a year of looming challenges on multiple fronts.
One of the biggest concerns from a wide range of fruit and vegetable producers, not just stone fruit, was the rising costs of production this season and the impacts of the cold and wet weather during spring. Mattina Fresh National Sales Director, Tom Panna says there is more transparency and communication between stakeholders allowing costs to be shared more evenly, even if the total increase in costs is not completely wiped out.
"It's with individual businesses with their customers obviously, but it feels like there is a good sense of understanding within Australia and internationally that there are additional costs but how can everybody work together to find that balance and harmony. There have been increases year on year, but it also has to be affordable for the individual consumer to continue to repeat purchase every week. It's the transparency and communication between each business to their customers and obviously an ethical understanding of the situation that inflation is in every by-product that gets us to producing, packaging and shipping our fruit. No one has really got together on this, but coming through from industry is that we are not operating under the cost of production, we are sustainably sharing the costs with our customers and supply chain - everyone is invested together."
He says Mattina Fresh has seen many positives of this, including the fact that all the required volume is being shifted across the supply chains and recovering some of the inflated costs.
"We have also remained up to date with varieties and there is no backlog of bin stock or old stock in the system," Mr Panna said. "We are up to date with harvest dates and packing dates. So, it's the perfect position to be in at the moment. The fear leading into the season was the same as every year; weather impacts and increased costs of production, where the grower was always stuck with the bill. This year it is showing that there is a higher level of appreciation and understanding to support a grower to recover a percentage of those costs. You will never recover everything because a consumer would never be able to afford our product. It is a great position to be in when everyone is sharing the costs with you."
Production-wise, it was a cold and wet start to the stone fruit season for Mattina Fresh, nights and days leading into Christmas that, but since then things have recovered and the company now aligned again with its normal timeline and is up on its yield across all of its varieties. Mr Panna says the recent warmer weather has not only strengthened volumes but also the sugars and sizing of the fruit.
Lunar Brand launches in Vietnam
The company has also started the export season, and Mr Panna says its main focus is the Vietnam market which Australia only just got access to again this year, while there are also opportunities in Singapore and Malaysia.
"We launched our Lunar Fruit brand in Vietnam last week and we had good feedback; it's crunchy, sweet, firm fruit that the market requires," he said. "So, we will continue to focus on growing our market share and consumption in Vietnam. Singapore and Malaysia have been fantastic, and demand has been so strong from these three markets that we haven't needed to send volumes to either Hong Kong or China. The volumes that are usually sent to China have been picked up by both the other two markets."
Mattina Fresh was joined by fellow stone fruit growers on the trip to Vietnam, including SHARP Fruit, SunFruit Orchards, Montague, Red Rich Fruits and VFS Exports.
"It was a great trip and we got to learn as an industry what the requirements are and it put us in a position where we knew our customer before we started supplying them," Mr Panna said. "There was a lot of learnings about their taste profile and what they look for in terms of specifications. I think it's a developing market, and there are some good opportunities for everybody."
For more information
Thomas Panna
Mattina Fresh
Phone: +61 419 315 030
[email protected]