Blueberries— Very similar to last week, we are continuing to see small volumes out of the Coffs Coast from growers, but the volumes are small; weather has been the biggest issue in this region and whilst we expect some good weather in the next 48 hours, the back end of the week has more rain forecasted. Night-time temperatures continue to be well above historical average. Far North QLD, are starting the week with some much-improved growing conditions with weather hitting mid 20’s during the day and minimum temps in the high teens and will continue for most of this week. We are continuing to see a little more volume; however, we won’t see a jump in volume for 10-14 days (depending on the weather). 

Strawberries – Dropped again last week as we move to the bottom of the season prior to QLD Winter strawberries starting. The warmer nights and days in Southeast QLD will result in a little more production in the coming weeks, but it is still very slow from this region. Good growing conditions continue in southwest WA; however, we are starting to see second year fruit from Wanneroo which is seeing the market come back slightly from its peak. Surprisingly quality has been ok, and retailers have said “white shoulder” is the biggest issue and not rots and mould, which is what we would expect at this time. 

Raspberries—Northern NSW / Southeast QLD, have jumped week on week and demand has continued with the amount of production. Quality across the board continues to be pretty good. Sooty mould has been an issue, but we should be mostly past this issue in the short term. We expect this volume to continue for the next 3-4 week with some of the larger farms getting close to halfway through their harvest. 

Blackberries—Production increased slightly week on week, but the volumes have now dropped behind where we were last year. We are not expecting significant movement in the next 2 weeks on Blackberries.