Strawberries have been harder to find on the supermarket shelves as growers across the country face challenges with the weather.<\/p>\n
Queensland’s main strawberry season usually finishes in September and October, when growers further south take over.<\/p>\n
But hot, dry weather in the Sunshine State is ending the peak season early there, while berries in other parts of the country are ripening later.<\/p>\n
Matt Gallace, a strawberry grower from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, said a cold winter had set his plants back.<\/p>\n
“We’re still probably two weeks behind where we would normally be at this time of year,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Coles has informed customers that strawberry supply may be limited. (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)<\/p>\n
Production down in Queensland<\/p>\n
With unreliable strawberry supplies in recent weeks, prices in the shops have edged up.<\/p>\n
Strawberries are currently retailing in the major supermarkets for around $4.50 to $5 for a 250g punnet.<\/p>\n
That is much lower than the heady prices of $11.99\/250g in Canberra in June 2022, but up from $2.50 a punnet more recently.<\/p>\n
Queensland Strawberry Growers Association president Adrian Schultz said weather extremes had resulted in a 20-30 per cent drop in yield during the winter\/spring season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adrian Schultz says hot weather is ending the Queensland season earlier than usual. (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)<\/p>\n
The start of the season was plagued by weeks of rain and damaged fruit that had to be thrown away.<\/p>\n
Mr Schultz said a “very, very hot and dry” few days in September and hot days in October were ending the season earlier than usual in key growing areas.<\/p>\n
“That finished off a lot of farms up here, there just was no fruit left. It got the plants to shut down,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It could have an effect on prices over the next couple of weeks until production goes back to normal.”<\/p>\n
Hydroponic farms in Queensland, which have more control over water and nutrition by growing strawberries on tabletops, have been able to continue growing fruit for longer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ripening has been delayed in Victoria because of cold weather. (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)<\/p>\n
Slower ripening in the south\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Gallace plants his strawberries at Main Ridge in Victoria between April and June, and usually starts picking from October.<\/p>\n
But this year the berries are ripening later.<\/p>\n
“Strawberries like warm nights and we haven’t had many warm nights over the last few months, so we’re behind by about two weeks in terms of our season down here,” he said.<\/p>\n
He is not the only one, with growers in the Yarra Valley and other southern regions also delayed.<\/p>\n
“Everyone is behind and it’s just been purely because the climate, the cold winter has just set those plants back a little bit,” Mr Gallace said.<\/p>\n
But he said it would not be long until picking ramped up.<\/p>\n
“Probably another week or two away, the price will start to ease in the supermarkets and your local fruit and veg shop,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hot, dry weather in the north and cold weather in the south have disrupted strawberry supplies. (ABC Rural: Jennifer Nichols)<\/p>\n
Supply to ‘return to normal’ soon<\/p>\n
Major supermarkets Woolworths and Coles have placed signs on the shelves alerting shoppers to the shortages.<\/p>\n
“Due to weather impacts on crops, we are experiencing some impact on\u00a0strawberry\u00a0supply,” a Woolworths spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said there would be more strawberries on the shelves soon.<\/p>\n
“We are working closely with our suppliers and anticipate these impacts will only be short-term and supply will soon return to normal,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strawberries have been harder to find on the supermarket shelves as growers across the country face challenges with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,104,138068,138069,138072,138070,138071,102],"class_list":["post-228515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-coles","tag-strawberries","tag-strawberry-shortage","tag-weather-impacts-strawberry-growers","tag-when-will-strawberries-get-cheaper","tag-why-are-strawberries-so-expensive","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}