Blueberries – The cooler weather to start the week continued from the week prior and we saw less production than what we expected across the board. Day and night temps look like they will stabilise, and we should see an increase in the coming two weeks. Given the slower ripening times, quality has been pretty good across the board.
Far North QLD – This region continues to hit good levels of production and high-quality fruit. The region will experience a cooler start to the week, with a slight increase in temps in both minimum and maximum temperatures at the end of the week. This might slow down production slightly but will have minimal impact.
WA – Premium fruit has started in WA 4 weeks earlier than last year and we have seen good demand at retail. Standard volumes in the state have increased to levels that we saw in late August last year, with retail at $4.50 vs $5.98 for the same time last year.
Strawberries – The market continues to fall well behind last year with the cooler weather, and overall production has moved sideways for the 5th week in a row. When you look at the trends of last year, we saw peak production hit at the end of August and move sideways for 4 weeks. It’s hard to know at this point when the jump in volume will occur. However, we are expecting production to increase in the next two weeks. Fruit quality across the board continues to be good.
Raspberries – Raspberry Volumes have dropped significantly over the last week. We are at the tail end with a couple of our growers. We expect volumes to continue at this level all the way through to the start of November when our summer production kicks off.
Blackberries – Production has dropped significantly, and similarly to Raspberries, we don’t expect a significant increase until October which is a little bit earlier than Raspberries.
