Blush Fact:

The French & Italian’s call the tomato “the love apple” the German’s “the apple of paradise”.

Harvesting and Packing the Tomatoes

Our summer crop is planted in June with harvesting commencing at the end of August, while our winter crop is planted in January with harvesting commencing at the beginning of April. Each crop will continue to yield 135,000 to 200,000 kilograms per week until the end of May for the summer planting and the end of December for the winter planting. The plants are removed, the glasshouses thoroughly cleaned and replanted within a month from the last harvest.

The electronic picking trolleys in action

Harvesting occurs five days a week. The leaves around the ripening truss are removed to make harvesting easier and when all the fruit on one truss have colour it’s time to harvest that truss. The plants continue to produce one new truss and grow 20cm per week. This keeps the plants at the same size because the distance between each truss that is harvested is also 20cm. Plants become around 12.5 metres long and will give about 37 trusses in one year.

The picking trolleys are electric and drive themselves to the packing shed where they are automatically unloaded onto a packing line. Virtually no boxes are lifted manually adding to the safety and comfort of our employees.

Currently our tomatoes are sold in supermarkets and fruit shops in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania and generally we load trucks twice a day that deliver to the wholesale markets and distribution centres in these states. In some instances it is feasible that our tomatoes can go from the vine to your shopping basket within 24 hours.