Bloody good idea suddenly bearing fruit

The future is far from rosy for most of the struggling orange industry unless, like the Mancini family of Griffith, you are growing blood oranges with a vibrant rose-pink flesh and dark-red juice.

All around the Murray, Riverland and Murrumbidgee citrus belts, depressed orange growers are contemplating once again feeding worthless excess new-season fruit from laden trees to pigs and burning their orange groves to the ground.

While other orange varieties are suffering, Griffith farmer Vito Mancini cannot keep up with demand for his blood oranges.

But at Vito Mancini's blood-orange citrus farm north of Griffith, harvest is in full swing and plans are afoot to triple production in the next three years. The difference between despair and delight these days in the embattled citrus industry lies solely with the variety of orange tree planted. Traditional Valencia and navel oranges are struggling to be sold locally and export orders are hard to find. Once loyal consumers are turning away in droves from buying oranges for kitchen fruit bowls or in school lunch boxes, preferring instead smaller, sweeter mandarins.

And many local orange juice manufacturers have deserted more expensive Australian-grown products for cheaper Brazilian imported orange concentrate.

But Mr Mancini and his family are bucking the trend. Their decision to plant 32,000 blood-orange trees since 2005 is now bearing fruit; with the unusual oranges finding a niche market with gourmet consumers attracted to their pink, luscious flesh to use in high-end cocktails, Middle Eastern and Asian salads and exotic desserts.

Mr Mancini is particularly elated by his first order this year for blood-orange juice from processors in Sicily - the traditional home of all blood or rosso oranges. Italian juice makers are intrigued by the particularly high, intense levels of the health antioxidant anthocyanin - that gives blood orange its natural crimson pigment --found in the Mancini fruit; a consequence of the Australian trees having been bred from old-fashioned varieties no longer found in Sicily.

"When I came back from university (to the family citrus farm at Griffith) I was looking for new opportunities but I could see it was always going to be tough if we just grew navel and Valencia oranges like all neighbours," Mr Mancini said. "I thought we needed to differentiate ourselves."

With two cousins, Mr Mancini grows more than 600 tonnes of blood oranges a year, and expects this figure to have more than tripled when their groves mature in the next five years. It's a production scale that will give Mr Mancini about 55 per cent of the existing Australian market; but which he hopes to expand through marketing, consumer education and pursuing exports.

It is also a business move that has resulted in returns from blood oranges per tonne being three times as high as for standard bulk oranges.

Source: The Australian, 29 July 2013