Visiting an apple orchard to pick your own fruit may sound like a fun family day out, but for grower Greg Mouat it means big business.
The pick-your-own fruit farm and roadside sales are what help keep his family business afloat.
“We probably sell about 20 per cent of what we grow, but that would account for around 50 per cent of our income,” Mr Mouat said.
The Mouats have about 20,000 apple trees and grow seven different varieties on their Batlow farm in the New South Wales Riverina Highlands.
By selling directly to the public, he said it cut out “dealing with the middlemen” and eliminated packing charges.
“Of course we still have all our growing charges,” he said.
“But you’re dealing direct with people and allowing people to have really fresh produce.”
Bypassing supermarket duopoly
Mr Mouat has welcomed the federal government’s direction for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to conduct a year-long inquiry into Australia’s supermarket sector.
“I don’t think we would be here as a business if we had to rely purely on either of the two large supermarkets,” he said.
“They’re quite brutal in the way they price their fruit, you have to be growing really high quality fruit, attaining high yields and getting a very good package.
“You have to do all of that while dealing with a perishable product and dealing with Mother Nature at the same time.”
The inquiry will look at supermarkets’ price practices and the relationship between wholesale, farmgate and retail prices.
“We want a fair go for families and farmers,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced recently.
“We know that it’s at the check-out where some of these cost-of-living pressures are most acutely, most harshly felt.
“We are very focused on that. That’s why we are doing a range of things to make our supermarket sector more competitive. We’ve empowered the ACCC, the consumer watchdog.”
Sweet success without supermarkets
Kylie and Michael Cashen, who operate their pick-your-own strawberry farm on the urban fringe of Wagga Wagga, were told by another farmer that avoiding supermarkets would be key to their success.
“During our research, we spoke to a farmer down in Victoria and he said to us, ‘Whatever you do, don’t touch the supermarkets … you’ll go broke’,” Mrs Cashen said.
In 2017, the Cashens and their two daughters, established Bidgee Strawberries and Cream farm as a family side hustle by planting 10,000 plants, which has since grown to 20,000 plants.
The Cashens are growing an older strawberry variety called Albion, which was developed in California and has a sweetness their customers appreciate.
“When they pick the strawberry off the plant and they can eat it straight away,” Ms Cashen said.
“It’s a very different flavour to what you would get in a supermarket.”
Ms Cashen said they let the strawberries fully ripen and become red before being picked.
“People are getting them when the sugars have all gone in,” she said.
“Whereas they’ll tend to find the ones in the supermarket are picked quite green and they will change colour but they won’t get sweeter.”
To make their business more profitable, the Cashens have also diversified beyond the picking patch with a cafe at the farm where they made strawberry goods including ice cream, pies, gin and jam.
Their strawberry farm is also becoming a major tourist and entertainment attraction for Wagga Wagga.
They now host events at the farm including music festivals, weddings, school groups and mums and bubs meet-ups.
Green time, not screen time
For Gilmore Valley residents Kevin Chaplin and Margie Merrett, Mouat’s Farm was an opportunity to teach their visiting grandchildren from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast where their food comes from, while reducing screen time.
“It can be a challenge with the technical stuff sometimes, but get them outside and they turn into totally different kids, they get out explore and have lots of fun,” Mr Chaplin said.
“When they live in urban areas they don’t appreciate where it is being grown.
“So, this is an opportunity to really demonstrate the scale and the operations, and just what it means to be an apple farmer.”
Mr Chaplin also appreciated being able to buy his food fresh from the farmer and bypassing the supermarkets.
“Coming directly to the farm is always a better option, purely because you can guarantee the flavour, the taste, the quality,” he said.
“Unfortunately, supermarkets tend to put things in long storage and then when you come home it doesn’t have the flavour … you think it would.”
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