Avocado firm sees confidence bear fruit

Katikati-based Just Avocados has celebrated the packing of its first 100,000 trays, a milestone in the company's plans to pack 500,000 trays within three years.
"We are well on track to achieving our goal, having packed 94,862 trays of class-one fruit and 21,572 trays of class-two fruit so far this season," said managing director Andrew Darling.
Part of the reason for the company's confidence is the prediction next season's crop will be the industry's biggest, as well as the progress made in research to change the avocado tree's habit of producing a heavy crop only once every two years.
Michael Darling of Avoworks, the partner company that provides harvesting and orchard services to growers, said New Zealand and international research was making progress in understanding the biennial bearing issue and with the correct orchard management, cropping should become more consistent season by season.
Established in April in what was Katikati's earliest kiwifruit packhouse in Woodlands Rd, Just Avocados held an open day on Thursday to give growers a chance to view its operations.
Andrew said about a dozen local growers not currently supplying the company were invited into the operation to hear of the company's long-term plans, as well as to see the packhouse and cool store complex, which is dedicated solely to avocados.
Just Avocados is a privately owned company with an integrated business model which offers growers and customers a service from the orchard to packhouse, to supermarket shelf.
It also has plans to open share-holding to invited growers.
While most packhouses have a primary focus on kiwifruit, Andrew said Just Avocados was able to offer a dedicated post-harvest service because it also had income from exporting.
The company supplies major clients including Coles of Australia and is part of the successful four-exporter Avanza group involved in collaborative marketing in Japan.
"We are now 60 per cent through our first season of operation and have been thrilled with both the grower support and performance of the facility so far. By season's end we will have packed 170,000 trays, serviced 80 growers, three exporters and over 10 international customers across Australia, Japan and South East Asia," Andrew said.
Some highlights of the inaugural season have included extension into local market sales, introduction of the Just Avocados three-piece pack, a re-launch of the company's signature brand, Bayfresh, accreditation for direct supply to Coles Australia and the signing of a number of new grower suppliers.
"Setting up a new operation held a certain level of risk, and while confident we would secure a good number of suppliers from when we operated as Global Fresh, it was heartening to discover the level of interest from growers we had no history with. I think the fact that we specialised as an avocado operation and have significantly reduced packing costs played a big part in grower decision-making around selection of service providers.
"This is just the first step. We are well positioned for future growth and are currently completing construction of a new cool store adjacent to the packing line and for next season will have a ripening room built to provide an additional service function for domestic retail programmes," said Andrew.