The first red-fleshed grapefruit from the Ord Valley in Western Australia to be exported to Japan left the dock this weekend, the shipment hopefully marking the end of a difficult road.
Kimberly Produce is the grower behind the fruit, produced from the company’s orchard in the Ord Valley in Western Australia’s north, initially established by the now-defunct Rewards Group managed investment scheme.
Last weekend’s consignment is the first commercial shipment of grapefruit from the Ord Valley to Japan, and will serve to test the supply chain and the market demand.
“The opportunity is now there for us to expand that market into Japan. This is basically a trial shipment to confirm the logistics of getting the fruit from Kununurra to Fremantle and then to Japan,” Kimberly Produce’s Lachlan Dobson told the ABC.
“This will be the first time Australian red grapefruit will be seen in Japan, so it’s an introduction and hopefully we get some follow-up orders by the end of the season.”
Kimberly Produce has struggled with a number of setbacks over the last few years, following the collapse of Rewards in 2010. It was initially hoped exports would begin last year, but the company’s receivership meant funds were short for pest management programmes.
“We were in receivership last year, so not much money was spent on anything,” Dobson told Asiafruit in March. “This year has been better and we’ve been able to manage the pesticide programme, so we’re going to have a tilt at Japan.”
Japan is the largest importer of grapefruit in the world, and while demand for the category has been suffering a little in the market, Ord Valley grapefruit fits into a competition-free window between fruit from Florida and South Africa.
Kimberly Produce expects to reach around 2,000 tonnes of red grapefruit production this year.
