![Tropical Pines general manager Anthony Dobson. Tropical Pines packing shed in Yeppoon packages the largest volume of fresh pineapples in Australia. It packages and sends fruit from 15 growers between central and south-east Queensland. Picture by Ellouise Bailey Tropical Pines general manager Anthony Dobson. Tropical Pines packing shed in Yeppoon packages the largest volume of fresh pineapples in Australia. It packages and sends fruit from 15 growers between central and south-east Queensland. Picture by Ellouise Bailey](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/217382805/6a1110de-b5da-455e-ba63-90688f225679.JPG/r0_184_4592_2776_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Tropical Pines general manager Anthony Dobson believes the pineapple industry needs to innovate to sell more and cater to convenience-driven consumers.
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The Yeppoon business packages the largest volume of fresh pineapples in Australia, packing anywhere between 10 and 12 million pines grown from 15 producers between central and south-east Queensland.
Mr Dobson said the biggest challenge for the industry as a whole was the need to sell more pineapples as sales had "flat-lined" over the last 30 years.
"Australia grows around 30 million pineapples and if you look at consumption, Australians only eat around 1.3 pineapples for person, per year."
He thought the industry needed better marketing campaigns and more convenient ways to present fresh pineapples for the modern consumer.
He said the reality with most families was unless the fruit was cut up in a container in the fridge it would sit in the fruit bowl and go bad.
"A lot of millennial's want everything now, quick and easy," he said. "But they're actually willing to pay for it."
He said other commodity-based industries had worked it out and innovated in the value-add space, but pineapples hadn't quite got there yet, a lag likely due to lack of money.
Pineapple business shares ways commodity growers can value-add
Tropical Pines was looking at tangible value-adding solutions to encourage industry growth and profit.
![Tropical Pines packs anywhere between 1 - 1.2 million trays every year. Picture by Ellouise Bailey Tropical Pines packs anywhere between 1 - 1.2 million trays every year. Picture by Ellouise Bailey](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/217382805/6ea51e15-9850-4045-ad38-4f68009665d7.JPG/r0_429_4592_3021_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
It secured a development grant from the Queensland Government in 2021 to invest in fruit drying infrastructure with plans to dry pineapples before moving into other fruit like strawberries where a lot of produce goes to waste in the fresh market.
Unfortunately the business has had to put the breaks on the drying project as its central and south-eastern growers were still affected by the natural flowering event, reducing pineapple production up to 90 per cent in some regions,
Mr Dobson also pointed out a gap in the frozen pineapple market, after Australian brand Aussie Frozen Fruit went into liquidation earlier this year.
This meant major retail chains were now only supplying imported frozen pineapples grown in the Philippines.
He said Tropical Pines would be looking at ways it could branch into the frozen market, but there was many challenges since it would be such a large-scale investment. He thought investing with other businesses could be a viable option.
How retailers could help boost commodity sales
But it wasn't just on industry to do all the heavy lifting. Mr Dobson said retailers also had to come to the plate.
He wanted to see investment into better infrastructure that could assist retailers in packing the product, such as machines that could peel, slice, and package pineapples into a tub.
He said generally pineapples or melons cut in half by retailers sold better as customers could see the inside was ripe. He also thought smaller portions were better for most shoppers as they knew the other half wouldn't go to waste.
He thought pineapples weren't often given the retail real-estate of apples or bananas - leaving pineapples to sit on the shelves for too long.
A Coles spokesperson was asked about these claims and said their stores sold a variety of forms of pineapples to cater to different customers' needs including whole pineapples with tops on, without tops, halved-pineapples, and grab-and-go pineapple snack tubs.
A Woolworths spokesperson said stores sold both cut and whole pineapples, but that customers could request a pineapple to be cut in half.
The spokesperson indicated Woolworths' stores had wrapping machines to halve pineapples but did not comment on investment into other infrastructure.
"To avoid fruit losing its freshness, we aim to match the volume of cut pineapples on display with customer demand and continue topping them up," the spokesperson said.