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A new trial led by the Costa Farms and Logistics team will see Costa Fresh Produce Boxes, filled with apples and bananas, delivered to 60 Caltex-Ampol service stations across Victoria on a weekly basis.
 
Joseph Borg, National Business Development Manager, Vertical Farming, said the trial launched this week was the result of an identified need to provide fresh fruit into the petrol and convenience market segment.

“While Victoria was locked down with COVID restrictions, we were able to complete the preparations for launch in readiness for when Victoria reopened,” Joseph said.

“This has provided Costa with an opportunity to diversify its customer base and establish a new platform for healthy snacking produce.

“It has also provided an opportunity for us to build different internal packing capabilities at Derrimut to meet the needs of new customers and their requirements.”

The trial has involved a cross-collaboration between Costa Farms and Logistics, the National Food Safety and Quality team and Vertical Farming.

“We have had a great team working on this project, with a strong focus on quality control to ensure we can provide the best quality fruit.

“This provides a prime opportunity to tap into the snacking platform.  Once we get through the State trial, if it is successful, we will look at the national opportunities and hopefully extend it to other produce lines.”

Today the Costa board publicly announced the appointment of Sean Hallahan to the position of Costa Group CEO and Managing Director, to take effect from 31st March 2021.

Announcing the appointment Costa Chairman, Neil Chatfield said: “Sean’s appointment is the culmination of a rigorous global executive recruitment search which included both internal and external candidates, following the notification by current CEO Harry Debney of his intention to retire from a full-time executive role.”

Read the full announcement.

The Coffs Coast Focus Magazine caught up with Andrew Scheuer, Horticultural Manager at Costa’s Berry Farm in Corindi on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. Take a look at his story.

Costa and Melbourne Polytechnic are leading the way in the development of workplace training technology to provide an enhanced training experience for more Victorians.

Mushroom harvesting is a skilled job that requires speed, agility, manual dexterity, and the ability to quickly identify when the produce is ready to be harvested and when it is not.

The challenge facing the Costa Group, Australia’s largest mushroom grower, and Melbourne Polytechnic a leading Victorian vocational training provider, was to develop a state of-the-art training tool that reduced staff turnover, improved harvest productivity, reduced wastage and ultimately resulted in the highest quality mushrooms being harvested.

Virtual Reality offered a training solution which could be adapted to the particular requirements of mushroom harvesting before a trainee was required to pick a live mushroom. From this basic concept came the Virtual Reality Harvester tool.

Starting with a ‘virtual’ bed of mushrooms, designer Liminal VR set about working with Costa and Melbourne Polytechnic on developing a training experience that would allow trainees to build their knowledge on the correct size of mushroom to harvest, the best cutting technique, the sorting of different types and sizes of mushrooms into packing boxes, disease identification and hygiene control.

The Victorian Government’s Workforce Training Innovation Fund administered by the Department of Education and Training was the perfect program for building a VR tool and increasing the opportunities for Victorians from all walks of life to gain employment in horticulture.

Take a look at our video.

The Costa Berry Category is supporting a Horticultural Innovation Australia project to develop new technologies and practices to improve pollination in protected cropping environments.

Costa is coordinating experimental trials in collaboration with the University of New England (UNE) and has created a new technical position, filled by Maria Manrique, to collect and report on trial data.

The research is funded through a $4.7 million-dollar grant, awarded under Round 4 of the Rural R&D for Profit program by the Department of Agriculture. It aims to improve and advance innovative methods of mechanical pollination to achieve pollination artificially and increase insect pollinator efficacy and pollination by improving the performance of honeybees under covers.

The project follows on from earlier research undertaken at the Costa farms in Corindi and Far North Queensland that has been examining the effectiveness of honeybees and stingless bees in pollinating blueberry flowers.

Maurizio Rocchetti, Senior Horticulturist – Blueberry Lead, who is coordinating Costa’s input into the project, welcomed the ongoing research partnership with UNE.

“This research will help to ensure we can continue to optimise our crops and ensure effective pollination rates under protected cropping,” Maurizio said.

Maria Manrique, who has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from the University of the Philippines, has been employed as a horticulturist – research and development technician for the project, which will run until September 2022.

Maria has worked with the Costa Berry Category and the Costa Tomato Category since 2017.

Maurizio said the trials would relate to the optimisation of pollination within protected cropping environment, including the evaluation of protected cropping on pollen viability of different berry crops and varieties; stingless beehive manipulation in order to achieve pollination during winter months under tunnel production; and evaluation of possible mechanical pollination as alternative to insect pollination.

Costa will also be providing in-kind support for the project, in resources and equipment.

Costa has released its 2019 Sustainability Report, covering all Costa operations in Australia, Morocco and China.

In 2018, Costa established the Sustainable Commercial Farming Objectives and in 2019 steady progress was made in meetings these objectives.

Costa is committed to making its operations sustainable so they can both withstand environmental risk, including unforeseen and extreme weather events, and maximise opportunities with respect to improving economic efficiency and profitability over the medium to long term.

The 2019 Sustainability Report provides key information relating to the Sustainable Commercial Farming Pillars of Environment, Economic and People, which are underpinned by 10 Sustainable Commercial Farming Principles.

Costa has implemented a COVID-19 Action Plan to ensure that as a business we are doing everything we can to prevent the spread of coronavirus in our workforce and the general community.

The health and safety of our employees and their families is our key priority and we have established COVID-19 Steering Committees to ensure we can respond rapidly across our business.

As an essential service, it is also important we maintain business processes that are critical to our day-to-day functioning.

We are continuing to follow closely the advice of the Federal Department of Health and have implemented a range of health and safety protocols including new arrangements for contractors and visitors to our sites, hygiene and cleaning practices, working from home policies and social distancing.

We have provided a suite of resources for our staff, including a dedicated intranet page and free-call health hotline and will be continuing to update advice as necessary.

In addition to our focus on the health and wellbeing of our employees, we are maintaining our rigorous food safety and quality processes.

As one of Australia’s leading fruit and vegetable producers, it is critical we continue to be able to provide quality fresh produce to our customers, both here in Australia and overseas.

During our peak harvest seasons across all our produce categories, we have high labour requirements.  In these uncertain times, we encourage people in industries that have been directly impacted to explore our employment opportunities.

Costa’s Tasmanian berry harvest is proving a boon for a group of university students who are using their summer break to earn money for their studies and gain valuable experience.

Sarah McKay is going into her third year of a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and is in her second season at the Costa 9 Mile blueberry farm. Working as a Quality Champion, she said the work was a great way to put what she was learning at university into practice.

“I did a uni trip to Costa in my first year and spoke to a couple of the horticulturists. That’s how I found out about it. I absolutely love working here. It’s so nice meeting people from all different countries and making the connection between what I study at university and the farm,” Sarah said.

She said she was hoping to complete her Honours project with Costa.

“I’d like to become a horticulturist. I like being hands on and this is a great environment.”

For twins Emily and Laura Sutton, from Port Sorrell, a job supervising at the Wrights Lane raspberry farm is the perfect summer job.

Heading into their fourth year of a physiotherapy degree at Charles Sturt University, the pair has spent the last few seasons working at Costa.

“It’s a good summer time job. It is really close to home and it works in well with our profession. We are working with a diverse range of people. It’s good experience and it helps with our communication skills. It is hard work and long hours, but we earn good money which helps us save for uni,” Laura and Emily said.

William Hogge, who is studying medicine at UTAS, has returned for his second season at Costa.

“I always like to be doing something and this keeps me busy all day. You meet so many people and make connections around the world. I am from Burnie so working here during the summer is really good,” Will said.

Oliver Kershaw, an engineering science student at UTAS, has also returned for his third season as a harvest.

“This is a perfect summer job,” he said.

Matt Tsai, originally from Taiwan, worked with Costa in New South Wales and in Tasmania during his working holiday. Now he is studying a Master of Information Technology at UTAS and spends his holidays picking.

“During the year I want to focus on my studies, so now I can make money during the summer for my study fees.”

Costa, one of the Coffs Coast’s largest employers, teamed up with the Coffs Harbour Lifeguards to provide a free surf safety information session for workers as part of the inaugural Eco Surf Fest at Woolgoolga.

Based at Corindi, Costa employs around 1700 local and seasonal workers during the peak harvest season in October and November.

To help them stay safe in the surf, Council’s Lifeguards ran a free safety session at Woolgoolga Beach on the weekend. The surf safety sessions are in addition to brochures which are produced in a variety of languages and distributed as part of Costa’s induction.

Christian Parsons, Regional Manager for Corindi, said Costa’s workforce was very diverse, representing more than 50 nationalities.

“We have a beautiful coastal lifestyle and want to ensure that all our employees are educated about how to stay safe in the water. We are pleased to be able to team up with the Coffs Harbour Lifeguards to provide a hands-on activity, demonstrating how to keep safe in the water,” Mr Parsons said.

“We are also very appreciative of the valuable service provided by the Council Lifeguard Service and the volunteer Surf Life Saving clubs, through their education programs and beach patrols.”

Greg Hackfath, Team Leader Lifeguard Services, said having such opportunities are essential.

“To know where to swim, the significance of the red and yellow flags, who to call in an emergency, flotation devices as aids in staying alive and what to do if they get into trouble in the surf are all vital messages that we’re happy to promote.

“All the participants had a briefing on Australian beach conditions and how to keep safe, as well as a supervised board session in the water, which was a fun way to finish the morning.

“Getting this information to non-English speaking workers and migrants is always a challenge and Costa is taking some great steps towards this. I’d also like to thank Solitary Islands Surf School, who donated their time to help with safety supervision on the day.”

Costa is Australia’s leading horticultural company with operations covering berries, mushrooms, citrus, glasshouse tomatoes and avocados. It has more than 3500 hectares of farmland spread across the country.