Citrus booms as exports lift

The company's marketing manager Ben Cant, who is also a Citrus Australia director, said demand was "incredible".

He said a trip to China late last year identified potential markets in the Asian giant.

"We spoke to one supermarket company that was five times the size of Woolworths, with 4000 supermarkets across China," he said.

"They said they wanted to buy 250 shipping containers of citrus, but indicated in five years they would want 1000 shipping containers, which is more than Australia sends to Japan, our largest export market."

The Cant family runs a citrus property at Lindsay Point, Vic, and a high-tech packing plant at Renmark.

Export demand for Australian navel oranges continues to grow with China now the number two destination.

"It's been a 1080 per cent growth in the past financial year," Mr Cant said.

This year they are predicting that we'll export 1500 containers."

He said sales were also growing in the United Arab Emirates and South East Asia.

Mr Cant said drought in the United States meant US citrus exports had dropped significantly.

"Korea is another potential market," he said.

"Different cultures want different things. In Australia last year we sold more kilograms of mandarins than oranges for the first time, but the Asian markets are not interested.

"We need to keep a few eggs in different baskets.

"Many of these markets already recognise Australian products as the best, which will help us in these overseas markets if we position ourselves right."

Three generations of the family are involved in the business, which began in 1969 after they bought land formerly owned and developed by Humphrey Kempe.

Although they might live in Vic, the family consider themselves South Australians, with much of their business and time spent in SA.

They have 101 hectares of citrus, specialising in red grapefruit ((xAD))­- they were the first in Australia to grow red grapefruit - growing the largest amount in southern Australia.

Varieties are constantly changing as the family seeks to innovate and satisfy customer demand.

"In the past 10 years, there have been huge changes," Mr Cant said.

"I returned to the property in 2003, then in 2005 we had the worst drought and that turned into a seven-year drought.

"The high Australian dollar at $1.13 ruined export markets.

"But when life gives you lemons - we say pack them!"

Mr Cant said the family viewed the drought as an opportunity.

"When mum and dad inherited the property, many of the trees were 25 to 40 years old," he said.

"In 2003, we had 20,000 trees, but then we pushed out 6000 to 7000 of them, which was a serious challenge.

"As mum says, if we go down, we go down in flames, so we continued to invest and plant more favourable varieties."

During this period, lack of supply because of changing varieties meant Impi did not have enough fruit for customers.

To ensure supply, they contracted a neighbour, who ran their business on a similar ethos to Impi, to supply fruit to keep tonnage up.

"Where we are located is very isolated, and all fruitfly-free," Mr Cant said.

"We decided that if we were going to continue to pack for others we needed good biosecurity, which is one of the reasons we chose to base the packing plant at Renmark.

"It means we can ship direct from here, offset costs and have stable power.

"It also means trucks can leave a little later, ensuring drivers can stick to logbook regulations."

* Full report in Stock Journal, June 12, 2014 issue.