It’s been a busy, but rewarding, six months at Boomaroo. Our Lara and Southbrook teams have been working hard behind the scenes to bring to our customers an expanded range of products: Boomaroo Organics.

Organic fresh produce production in Australia has gone from strength to strength in recent years, spurred by an increased consumer awareness of their impact on the environment, as well as their pursuit of a healthier lifestyle and diet. This has seen an increase in industry revenue of 18.4% over the past five-years.

Similarly, we have seen a marked increase in growers producing organically or introducing organic lines to their existing product offering to consumers. As such, we have sought to meet this demand for Certified Organic vegetable seedlings.

Boomaroo is excited to announce that we have now obtained full Organic Certification for commercial seedling production at both our Lara and Southbrook sites.

Here’s a little of what will be on offer, and the journey we took to get here:

Our Organic Offering:

Product Range

In excess of 250 seedling trials have been conducted to date across both our Lara and Southbrook facilities, with our final round of Winter trials currently nearing completion in Lara. With trials achieving strong results, all core crop categories offered as part of Boomaroo’s conventionally-grown seedling range will also be offered in our Organic seedling range including:

• Iceberg lettuce
• Coloured lettuce
• Cos lettuce
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Celery
• Silverbeet
• Tomatoes
• Leeks
• Onions

We of course welcome any enquiries into further crops to meet our customers’ needs.

Timing

Our Southbrook nursery is up and running, and ready to receive orders for Organic seedlings now.

Our Lara nursery is also ready to take Organics orders, with the first deliveries on-farm anticipated in late December 2020.

Our Organics Journey

Our journey to Organic Certification has been meticulous and uncompromising, involving all aspects of our operations from our growing and production teams, product sourcing and master planning to QA and administration in order to achieve a detailed understanding and full compliance with the National Standard for Organic and Bio-dynamic Produce. So what did this journey involve?

Site Planning

Comprehensive site assessments and independent audits have been conducted at both our Lara and Southbrook sites and Organic Management Plans prepared to ensure segregation between organic from conventionally-grown crops is always maintained, from sowing to seedling dispatch. Additionally, we have invested in facility upgrades to further mitigate any cross-contamination risks, including dedicated production equipment, such as watering gantries, and separate storage facilities for organic inputs.

Sourcing of Organic Inputs

We have spent the last 12 months developing partnerships with industry-respected and Certified Organic suppliers of the growing inputs we need to produce strong, healthy and farm-ready Organic vegetable seedlings, including growing media, plant nutrition, pest and disease control and seed.

Seedling Trials

Our extensive programme of organic seedling trials is nearing completion, with final Winter trials now underway and exceptional results recorded to date. Trials across all crop categories have been conducted in duplicate to assess the performance of a wide range of organic input combinations, and progressively over a 12-month period, to ensure applications are tailored for optimum year-round results.

Compliance

In parallel to the above, stringent organic processes, procedures and protocols have been documented as part of Boomaroo’s Quality Management System, providing further validation and confidence to our customers that Organic Certification requirements and their high quality expectations are met.

Expressions of Interest

We’re thrilled to be now launching the Boomaroo Organics product range to our customers. Please email organics@boomaroo.com to register your interest, or make contact with your Boomaroo Territory Manager.