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The concept came up because Driscoll's Europe moved to Australia recognising there was a
big hole in the market for quality strawberries
and raspberries.
They are world renowned, they have a company in America and they were looking for growers
in Tasmania to grow the berries for them. Our
friends in England they are very experienced strawberry
growers, they're the second largest strawberry growers in Europe, I think they've been growing
for over 118 years.
Over the next year we threw the idea around of the possibility of setting up a joint venture
or a partnership based here at Burlington and we've
been going a year so far, this time last year it was
a greenfield site.
We have invested in producing strawberries and raspberries for the domestic market, mainly
on the mainland but also in some Tasmanian stores
as well. It's using the latest techniques and technology
to maximise our production and supply from November through till May strawberry
and raspberry varieties.
It's been hard work but rewarding, on the berry farm we've got 10 hectares of these
tunnels covering strawberries and five hectares covering
the raspberries, so 196 continuous tunnels. We will
go to a maximum length of 130 metres, the aim is to design your site around the efficiency
of picking. We market through Driscoll's, so they're our
marketing organisation. It's a good model because we can
focus purely on the production and packing of fruit. The varieties we grow are Driscoll's
genetics and so they know they produce the quality they
need to sell.
The strawberry variety we grow is Amesti and it's well known for both its quality and
also in its um, shelf life, it will last a whole long trip
up to Brisbane for example. The raspberry varieties that we are
growing are Maravilla, it's the most popular raspberry variety on the market worldwide
at the moment.
Agriculture in general is getting more and more high tech, starting from a monetary side
and budgets is all one per plant or per kilo, um, all
tasks are barcoded or coded so all staff have their own
barcode and it allow, allows the business to be very analytical in its operations and
then we can look at using more high-tech methods to improve
efficiency in that, that aspect in the business.
We've been very lucky recently to be awarded a grant that has accelerated our plans significantly.
We feel that we're able to expand. The opportunities in Tasmania looking ahead, looking five, ten
years down the track I think are significant.
You've got the right climate, you've got good soils, you've got excellent water. If anything
has Tasmanian attached to it people see it as
cleaner, greener, fresher, more natural. People want, they
want perfection and that's what we're striving for to provide them with that. So you've got
to just go for it, give it a go and um, I think the sky's
the limit really.