New South Wales' Riverina plains are undergoing a transformation: Agri Australis, the local arm of Italian food giant Ferrero – the world’s third-biggest chocolate and confectionary company and makers of well-known brands such as Nutella, Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Surprise – has staked a claim in the Riverina in an effort to shore up supply of hazelnuts to use in its products.
It is about halfway through planting one million trees in paddocks near Narrandera as part of a $70 million project that will create more than 100 full-time and part-time jobs. Once the trees reach maturity, it is estimated they will yield more than 5000 tonnes of in-shell hazelnuts a year – more than 30 times the amount currently produced in Australia.
While its traditional hazelnut planting activities are centered on Italy, China, Germany, Poland, India and Brazil, Ferrero launched a division in 2013 to develop new regions for tree production.
“The key elements driving the decision to invest in increasing the production of hazelnut around the world are the growth in sales driven by our products, together with the attention for the quality of raw materials,” the company says.
Ferrero set its sights on the southern hemisphere – South America, South Africa and Australia – where it could see “the possibility of exploiting the counter-seasonality effect, harvesting in the opposite season to the northern (hemisphere) and having the possibility of fresh hazelnuts year round”.
Agri Australis general manager Claudio Cavallini says potential to capitalise on the growth of Australia’s emerging hazelnut market also attracted Ferrero down under. Australia produces about 150 tonnes of in-shell hazelnuts a year but imports more than 2000 tonnes of cracked product (equivalent to about 4500 tonnes of in-shell nut), according to peak body the Hazelnut Growers of Australia.
In 2011, having scoured NSW, Victoria and Tasmania looking for suitable properties – good water availability and soil type was the main criteria – Ferrero bought adjacent farms, the 1788ha Dellapool and 877ha Arrambee, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River at Sandigo, east of Narrandera.
About 90 per cent of Dellapool – formerly owned by large-scale potato farmers and listed for sale in 2009 at more than $20 million (or about $1200 a hectare) – was set up for irrigated and dryland cropping, including 660ha of flood irrigation and 610ha under centre pivots. Arrambee had essentially been farmed as a dryland operation with about 100ha of flood irrigation and bore-water entitlement.
