A lychee grower from Mareeba has become the first farmer in Australia to successfully send a commercial shipment of lychees to the United States.
Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment Curtis Pitt said he had visited the Mareeba lychee farm back in 2015 and was thrilled to be able to return to personally congratulate Marcello and Katrina Avolio.
“It is an honour to have the opportunity to celebrate such groundbreaking success with these industry pioneers,” he said.
“An initial shipment of 242 cartons of Queensland lychees from Mr Avolio’s farm landed in the US just in time for Christmas, the first ever from Australia.
“Following the success of this initial export, the Avolios are planting additional lychee trees on their property in anticipation of bigger future demand.”
The shipment is part of a three-year pilot program by Mr Avolio and a team of industry experts including the Australian Lychee Growers Association (ALGA), the federal department of agriculture, Steritech Irradiation Facility, Horticulture Innovation Australia and export agents.
Mr Avolio said it had been a very successful season for them.
“Being involved in Australia’s first shipment of lychees to the US has been a steep learning curve for us but we are expecting increased demand from overseas and local markets for our product,” he said.
Export and marketing company, Favco, worked with the growers to organise the shipment.
Favco business manager John Nardi said the standards required to get the fruit into the US were incredibly high as many protocols, procedures and import hurdles had to be overcome.
“In the domestic market there is a 1 to 5 per cent tolerance in defects, but for the US there is a very low tolerance,” Mr Nardi said.
Mr Avolio’s fruit was carefully inspected with 100 lychees cut open to ensure there were no pests or defects.
ALGA president Derek Foley said the quality and taste of the exported Australian lychee had been well received by US consumers.
“We took part in a pilot program to get our lychees into the US and after this successful result we will hopefully see the continuation of exports to the US from Australia,” Mr Avolio said.
He had his orchards and packhouses audited by the agriculture department before they got approval to export to the US.
Only US and Australian compatible lychee chemicals could be used on the orchards and crops were monitored fortnightly to ensure there were no pests of quarantine concern.
Mr Nardi said the Australian lychees are highly regarded in the US in terms of quality so are able to command a premium price.
Queensland exports reached a record $53 billion last year and December 2016 recorded the best month ever for Queensland exports with $6.7million in sales.