Aussie farmers look for alternative ways to handle carrot glut
A Queensland carrot farm is inviting the public to come pick their own carrots as a unique way to deal with an Australian-wide oversupply in carrots.
Kalfresh, located in Kalbar near Brisbane, are running a special event on 7 October 2017 called CARROT(astrophe) Day where the public can come and pick their own carrots to help prevent them from going to waste.
Rob Hinrichsen, Director of Kalfresh, said after 25 years in the vegetable business he has never seen such a large oversupply of carrots.
“It seems there’s been a perfect storm of events which have led to an absolutely flooded Australian carrot market,” Hinrichsen said.
Blaming a number factors, Hinrichsen attributed the carrot glut to optimal Australian growing conditions, big crop yields and a Russian ban on European imports which are flooding the world market with carrots.
“Our regular customers continue to support us but there are only so many carrots they can take,” Hinrichsen said.
Despite supplying charities with free carrots and providing Woolworths with value-added pre-cut carrots, Hinrichsen said there is still leftover carrots.
“Even with all of these initiatives, we are still having to plough in carrots, something no farmer wants to do. And that’s where the idea for the Carrot Day came from – let’s turn a negative into a positive,” he said.
The CARROT(astrophe) Day will also provide the public a chance to meet the farmers and buy other carrot products like carrot cake, carrot bread and carrot sausages.
Those wishing to attend the day need to purchase tickets via the Kalfresh website. Tickets are AUD $5.00 for adults and AUD $2.50 for children.
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