Australian grower plans to expand lettuce export
The major leafy vegetable grower, owned by Geoffrey and Anne Story, took out the top gong at the Heritage Bank Business Excellence Awards by winning Regional Business of the Year.
With properties in Cambooya, Grantham and Clifton, the family-run company supplies to major food outlets like Subway and Hungry Jacks, as well as hospitality businesses across Australia.
On top of growing the produce, Story Fresh's 100 employees also ran a full in-house processing operation, meaning the product left the property ready for consumption.
"We cut them, wash, dry and make them ready to eat," Mr Story said.
"There's a massive process involved, so there's a whole range of innovative things we do to get that produce ready."
While the domestic market is Story Fresh's strong point, Mr Story said the company was investigating international export, including through Wellcamp airport.
"We see a lot of potential in the future to use Wellcamp, but we're still early in building the export business," he said.
"We've been reconfiguring our capacity and capability so we can do more export than we currently are."
Read more at The Chronicle (Tom Gillespie)