Western Australia’s “Spud King” Tony Galati has made a $14 million deal to buy two major orchards in the South West.<\/p>\n
The Galati Group, best known for its Spudshed supermarkets and low-cost produce, has purchased Redland farm and Guadagnino Orchards, both in Manjimup.<\/p>\n
The two orchards produce a wide range of fruit including Bravo, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Gala and Golden Delicious apples, as well as pears, cherries, stone fruit and avocados.<\/p>\n
Mr Galati said settlement was due next month.<\/p>\n
“We’ve taken ownership of one of the farms and will settle the second next month,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s about ensuring we can offer top-quality apples and avocados at fair prices, all year round.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ray Guadagnino’s family owns one of the orchards the Galatis plan to buy. (ABC Rural: Jessica Hayes)<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Guadagnino family, which has owned one of the orchards for decades, said the sale was being negotiated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But they were pleased their property would be taken over by the Galatis.<\/p>\n
“We’re very happy it’s going to a good family,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“They have the same values as us \u2014 that’s important to us.”<\/p>\n
Vegetables WA chief executive Peter Spackman said the acquisition was unlikely to negatively impact smaller producers and could strengthen WA’s food security.<\/p>\n
“We shouldn’t see too much of a difference,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’d always like to see small family businesses stay in the industry, but we also understand there’s a bit of pressure on in the market.<\/p>\n
“If they’ve got the opportunity to exit while we’re continuing to supply food to WA and continue on food security, that’s a good thing.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The South West orchards produce a wide range of fruit. (ABC Rural: Jessica Hayes)<\/p>\n
Galati Group chief executive Frankie Galati said the investment reflected the company’s commitment to regional WA.<\/p>\n
“Initially we wanted to ensure that we had a good supply of apples for our shops and retailers,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got a large customer base and we’ve found that the apple supply over the last few years has been very tight.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to ensure that we got a consistent supply, and that’s part of the investment.”<\/p>\n
The family is also expanding its retail footprint, with a new Spudshed store opening in Kalgoorlie later this month.<\/p>\n
Other outlets are planned in Albany and Geraldton next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Australia’s “Spud King” Tony Galati has made a $14 million deal to buy two major orchards in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[155201,43,44,153283,155200,155198,155199,41,39,42,40,45,155202],"class_list":["post-265458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-galati-group","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-south-west-wa","tag-spud-king","tag-spudshed","tag-tony-galati","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wa-news","tag-who-is-the-spud-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265458","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=265458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}