Costa Group has signed an agreement to acquire the Avocado Ridge orchards and packhouses from the Carney family.
The acquisition will see Australia’s leading horticultural group expand its avocado plantations by 300ha, with an additional 200ha of unplanted land, all located in central Queensland’s Childers and Kumbia regions.
Costa Group has jointly acquired the property with Macquarie Agricultural Funds management, which will purchase the farms and lease them to Costa for 20-years.
“This acquisition is a first major step in Costa’s strategy to vertically integrate our avocado category,” said Costa CEO Harry Debney.“It will add significant growing capacity to our existing plantings, and ripening and marketing functions.
“Avocados will become a truly vertically integrated fifth pillar complementing our existing core produce categories of berries, mushrooms, citrus and glasshouse tomatoes.”
Debney said Costa’s focus is to be the leader is its categories, and to ultimately achieve a 52-week supply of avocados.
The acquisition is expected to be completed in January 2017, taking Costa’s total avocado plantings to 400ha.
