Coles Fresh Advisor and chef Curtis Stone visited Manbulloo Mangoes in Giru and Pacific Reef Fisheries at Ayr on Thursday to officially announce loan assistance for the two innovative businesses through Coles’ Nurture Fund.
In addition the $500,000 interest-free loan through the Nurture Fund that Manbulloo Mangoes (which has plantations in Giru, Townsville, Katherine and Mareeba) received last year, managing director Marie Piccone has now signed an eight-year supply agreement with Coles.
“The loan will allow us to plant an additional 20,000 trees at our Katherine plantation which will increase our production by 30pc over the next five years,” Ms Piccone said.
“The agreement will provide security for us as a business and the loan will help with our expansion which will see more than 50 million of our Kensington Pride mangoes sold through Coles over the life of the agreement,” she said.
She said some trees already have fruit and others are blossoming in preparation for this year’s mango season and they’re getting ready to sell around six million mangoes through Coles this year.
As part of the project, Manbulloo will employ around 60 additional people during peak season to harvest the extra volume and work in a second shift in its existing packing shed.
The business will also invest up to $1 million in additional picking machines to pick the extra volume of mangoes once production increases.
Manbulloo Mangoes was formed in 2005 with the purchase and unification of stand-alone operations at Katherine, Giru and Townsville.
“Since that time we’ve made a lot of efficiency improvements, which has seen the rate of premium grade mangoes produced at Katherine alone jump from 24pc to 90pc.
“We had quick jumps in the early years and now we’re tweaking our farm management techniques to continue increasing the quality and consistency of our produce.”
Ms Piccone said the expansion is coming at a really good time as the business is currently struggling to meet demand.
“It’s that strong consumer pull for our produce that Coles has recognised; we don’t look at this current expansion plan as the end of the story, but a milestone in our continuing journey.”
Pacific Reef Fisheries received a $430,000 interest-free loan to help implement an Australian-first farming practice commercial prawn nursery which will boost supply of Australian Black Tiger prawns by around 40 percent over the next two years.
The family owned and operated businesses chief operating officer Maria Mitris-Honos said the ‘nursery’ will support prawn growth, which will increase overall yield, deliver larger prawns consistently through the year and create around 10 new jobs.
“Pacific Reef will become the first Australian prawn producer to use a nursery on a commercial scale which allows prawns in a temperature controlled environment for an additional three weeks,” Ms Mitris-Honos said.
She said the nursery will be completed over the next two years, with the business and consumers expected to start reaping benefits in time for Christmas in 2017.
“Christmas is huge for the seafood industry and it’s an important time to have the right size and quantity of prawns in the market,” she said.
“With the nursery, we’ll be able to grow Australian Black Tiger prawns which are up to 15 per cent bigger for the Christmas harvest in years to come.”
Pacific Reef will install an additional four 100,000L nursery tanks at its property in Guthalungra, which will double its current capacity and allow the business to produce its entire Black Tiger prawn crop through the nursery in 2017.
“We had already planned to go ahead with expansion at some point in time, but the loan has allowed us to fast-track construction.”
Since Maria’s father, Nick Mitris, bought the business in 1998, the farm has grown to around 100 hectares and produces around 1,000 tonnes of prawns each year.
“We’re proud of how the business has developed over the years, we started off at a relatively small scale with 20 ponds and we now have 100.
“We’ve been in business now for 18 years and we’ve been supplying Coles for 16 years, its been an excellent partnership for us, and its great to provide families across the nation with this iconic Aussie food.”
Mr Stone said Coles purchases 96.6pc of their fruit and vegetables domestically which is a number the supermarket chain wants to continue to see increase.
“Prawns and mangoes are synonymous with summer in Australia and this announcement ultimately means consumers will be able to access more in-season Aussie-grown produce at Coles,” he said.
“The fact that three (including Des and Paula Chapman at Rocky Ponds in Bowen who recently received a $400,000 grant to install a state-of-the-art nursery and install fully computerised irrigation and fertigation systems to boost productivity by up to 20 per cent and create 15 new jobs) of the Queensland Nurture Fund recipients so far have come from the Townsville region is a huge testament to the innovative growers in the area.”
Businesses with less than $25 million in annual revenue and 50 or fewer full-time employees can apply now for round three of funding from the Coles Nurture Fund.
