Community
3 September, 2021
Queensland Strawberry Peak Season
The Queensland Strawberry peak season is in full swing and with excellent growing conditions, there’s a huge abundance of strawberries hitting the shelves.
The Queensland Strawberry peak season is in full swing and with excellent growing conditions, there’s a huge abundance of strawberries hitting the shelves. Many farms have been increasing their volume output by 30-50% in just the last week alone, which is set to continue for the next 6 weeks! Now is the time to stock up on punnets whilst they're in their prime!
The Queensland Strawberry industry hasn’t had it easy this year. From needle nonsense, severe drought conditions, chronic workforce shortages and now with prices plummeting, there is a significant drop in sales with many farms now struggling to survive - they need your help to buy while prices are at an all-time low.
Traditionally, restaurant, cafe, dessert and cake shop trade can usually be relied on as growers enter the peak of the season, but due to lockdowns, that has not happened this year. Furthermore, many people are turning more to online deliveries to purchase their groceries and anecdotally strawberries tend to be purchased less online as they are often a spontaneous purchase, because they look so good.
Currently, punnets of strawberries are widely available for under $2, with Woolworths selling at $1.90, Coles at $1.70, and Aldi at $0.99 across the state. Meaning, farmers are actively losing around 50c for every sale and are unable to cover the most basic of costs if demand doesn’t increase. If this continues, devastatingly, strawberry farmers may be forced to pick and dump their strawberries or walk away from whole fields with fruit left to rot.
So with this in mind, growers are pleading with Australians to take advantage of the low prices and buy them by the basketful for healthy snacking. This is also the perfect and most affordable time to get inventive with strawberries, from oven roasting and complimenting a baked brie, to trying out a spicy strawberry salsa with tortilla chips - the options are endless! So, if you’re a strawberry lover and want to do your part to help the Queensland strawberry industry, there is no better time than now to head into your local store to stock up on high quality super-affordable fruit, while they’re at their plumpest and juiciest.
