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On The Land

15 April, 2022

Far Northern fruit feeds the world

CALIFORNIAN fruit lovers have been increasing their consumption of Far North Queensland grown mangoes year on year, for the last four seasons, with one major operation now exporting more than 100 tonnes of fresh, Tableland grown Kensington Pride and R2E2 mangoes annually into the American market.

By Sally Turley

Entrepreneur, farmer and business woman and local girl made good, Marie Piccone of Manbulloo Ltd bought a few run down mango farms in the Northern Territory in the early 2000's and has built capacity until she is now the largest producer of Kensington mangoes in Australia. She said the company's Tableland farms were an extremely important part of her operation.
Entrepreneur, farmer and business woman and local girl made good, Marie Piccone of Manbulloo Ltd bought a few run down mango farms in the Northern Territory in the early 2000's and has built capacity until she is now the largest producer of Kensington mangoes in Australia. She said the company's Tableland farms were an extremely important part of her operation.

Manbulloo Limited’s managing director and owner, Marie Piccone, said her company had been looking for export opportunities around five years ago when representatives of the US retail giant, Walmart came to Australia looking for partners, tried some of their northern grown fruit and a deal was struck. 

“The Manbulloo North arm of our operation, including the “Mountain View”, “Pin Road” and “Hilltop” farms near Dimbulah, is an incredibly important part of our expanding business which now owns and operates seven mango farms across Queensland and the Northern Territory,” Ms Piccone said. 

“The 25,000 trees produce significant volumes of domestic, export and value-added product and double the length of our annual harvest. We start harvesting fruit in the Northern Territory in mid-September and finish on the Tablelands in mid-March, giving us a greater regional spread.” 

Aiming to increase volume, achieve a better base price for growers' class 2 products and maintain Manbulloo mango's in-store presence all year round was behind a grower-based initiative to produce Kensington Pride Mango Nectar as a value-added product in 2018. 

“Following four years of development to get the nectar to a shelf-ready stage, we were excited when the fi rst Coles pilot in October ran out of product, just eight weeks into a predicted 12-14 week run, so we know the demand is there,” Ms Piccone said. 

“We have several other value- added products in the pipeline which we will be releasing over the next 12-24 months and we are quite excited about the Jack Fruit trial we commenced 12 months ago on the Tablelands.” 

Jackfruit are the largest tree-grown fruit in the world and are a member of the fig, mulberry and breadfruit family. The importation of fresh jackfruit into Australia is not permitted for bio-security reasons and all that is grown here is consumed domestically. 

“We have planted 120 trees in the trial, and while it is early days in the highly experimental project and there are no guarantees, we are quietly optimistic. The Dimbulah climate should suit the Indian native and there is a strong demand for Australian grown jackfruit,” Ms Piccone said. 

“We employ around 80 seasonal staff during the harvest and maintain a core of 5-9 permanent staff all year round. We have a great team on the Tablelands and a good relationship with our itinerant crew who come in from Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga for the season. 

“Exporting mangoes requires a lot more eff ort than supplying the domestic market alone, but premium aside, being part of the global market offers us the benefits of stability and diversification. It gets our name out there and keeps us in touch with global trends. 

“All our domestic product is sold through Coles, but we also export mangoes to Korea, New Zealand, Canada and China. 

“We plan to continue expanding, but to maintain our product's high value internationally, we need to ensure we have buyers in place, avoid dumping of poor quality fruit and ensure our promotion and marketing are strategically managed.”

 A past recipient of the Telstra Queensland Business Women's Award in 2015, Ms Piccone said it was while doing a due diligence exercise on the original Manbulloo mango plantations in the Northern Territory for Kerry Packer, that she decided to invest in the farms. 

“Mr Packer didn't end up pursuing the purchase and the farms were so run down, I decided I could probably afford to buy them myself. We spent years rebuilding the brand, the infrastructure and the fruit quality before I began expanding the company in 2014-15,” she explained. 

That expansion program has resulted in Ms Piccone becoming a significant player in the nation's horticultural industry and Australia's largest producer of Kensington Pride (aka Bowen special) mangoes. Born and raised in Cairns, and with many family still living in the area, she said “the Tableland region is part of my DNA”.

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