the pineapple story

The Pineapple Story
Pineapple Story is downloadable in PDF format. Click here for Pine Story PDF (Size: 227KB)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pineapples - King of Fruit
Beginnings
The foothills of Queensland's Glasshouse Mountains, near the Sunshine Coast, are famous for their numerous pineapple farms.

But the 'king of fruit' - so named because of its remarkable crown - is not native to Australia.

Pineapples took Europe by storm after Christopher Columbus discovered the luscious fruit on the island of Guadeloupe in central America in 1493.

Originally evolved from a herbaceous plant found in Brazil, the cannibalistic Carib Indians used pineapples in cooking to sweeten the taste of dismembered enemies.

When Columbus took the fruit home, it became both a challenge for horticulturalists to grow and a favourite of royalty, whose limited access to sweet, fresh fruit elevated the pineapple to celebrity status.

However, shipping fresh fruit from the Caribbean to Europe and North America proved a risky business. Only the speediest ships could deliver ripe, wholesome fruit. Because of their exotic and rare nature, pineapples became legendary as hostess centrepieces and were immortalised by architects and craftsmen in carved wood or moulded mortar in public buildings and private mansions.

As a result, the pineapple became recognised as a symbol of welcome and hospitality.

So how did they come to be cultivated in countries such as Hawaii and Australia?

It's known that pineapples were collected from French Guiana in 1819 and sent to Versailles. Some time later several plants were sent to England from Versailles, where they flourished in greenhouses. It is said these resulted in the development of the smooth cayenne variety, which was later sent to Hawaii and then Australia in 1903. This is the variety most widely cultivated commercially throughout the world today.

Up until that time, missionaries had carried rough leaf cayennes to many parts of the tropical world and in Queensland, Lutheran missionaries grew the first fruit in Brisbane around 1860.

Queensland's first farm to grow the smooth cayenne pineapple was at Woombye, near Nambour. It is still growing the fruit today.

Production and planting
Because of its balmy climate, Queensland's coastal strip is ideal for growing pineapples, which are frost sensitive. No pineapple is grown more than 40km inland, and most is cultivated closer to the ocean. While summers are warm to hot and wet, winters are cool and comparatively dry. The ideal temperature range is 15.6C to 32.2C.

Pineapple plants do not enjoy wet feet. They require sandy soils with good drainage. For this reason, the pineapples are planted in purpose-built raised beds that follow the slope of the land. Subsurface drains are laid on soils that are not friable to a depth of 600mm.

Pineapples are drought tolerant and will produce fruit where yearly rainfall is 370mm to 600mm. This means that elaborate irrigation systems are not needed.

The sun-loving spiky plants grow best on north facing slopes, although in warmer more northerly parts of Queensland, around Rollingstone and the Atherton Tableland, the influence of aspect is offset by warmer temperatures.

A practice adopted to improve soil structure and fertility is to return old crops back to the ground, and if possible, use inter-cycle cover crops such as sorghum or legumes. Such practices are being used increasingly to improve soil sustainability.

Virtually all of Australia's pineapples are grown in Queensland, where 200 Golden Circle growers produce between 100,000 and 120,000 tonnes annually for processing. About another 20,000 tonnes of fruit are grown for the fresh market.

The area under cultivation is about 6000ha.

Three parts of the pineapple can be planted: the tops (the crown and leaves); the slips (offsets that grow from the stem); and suckers (offsets that grow from the base of the plant).

Every plant produces suckers and these eventually produce a second or ratoon crop. The first and second crops, each of which take 22-24 months to mature, usually produce the commercial yield of a plant.

Planting can occur year-round and because there is some choice of planting materials, pineapples can be produced every month of the year - a boon for farmers and consumers.

Spreading the farm workload more evenly throughout the year provides efficiencies and productivity gains. This extends to harvesting, where inductants can be used to ensure all the plants peak at the same time, allowing one pass of the pickers, rather than two or three at different times.

Because pineapples yield up to 250 tonnes of fruit per hectare (main crop plus one ratoon), soil needs to be replenished. Golden Circle's horticulturists closely monitor soil and leaves to identify the need for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and other nutrients.

One of the more common pineapple problems, blackheart, occurs during the colder months. It is being overcome through the breeding of new hybrid varieties, such as the Golden Circle Gold Wintersweet.

Harvesting is still relatively labour intensive, with thick gloves protecting hands as hard-working pickers snap the pineapple from its stem, and twist off the top (if the fruit is destined for processing). Old timers can still be seen using razor-sharp long bladed knives to cut the pines from the plants.

A boom conveyor moves the fruit from the pickers to the tractor and into bulk containers. Once full, the containers are transported by rail or road to the Golden Circle factory. If destined for the fresh market, tops are left on and the fruit is packed into cartons for shipping to the markets or direct to retail outlets.

Outlook
Aromatic, sweet and juicy, pineapple is a delight to eat. But in the past, inconsistency in quality has deterred many consumers from choosing fresh pineapple. Part of the problem was that until recently, there were only two varieties of pineapple - the smooth cayenne and the rough cayenne - available in Australia. The rough cayenne, though sweet, is considered too small for the fresh market. While the right size, the smooth cayenne can be acidic to taste, which has made it more suitable for processing. It is also prone to blackheart.

For these reasons, Golden Circle along with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and researchers at the University of Queensland, have been working on the development of new varieties, termed hybrids and cultivars, that will consistently meet taste criteria.

Two of the first hybrids to be bred commercially in Australia for the fresh market are the Bethonga Gold and the Golden Circle Gold Wintersweet. Both winter fruit, they have drawn rave reviews from consumers for their incredible sweet, golden flesh. They also have four times the vitamin C of the smooth cayenne.

While the Australian pineapple industry is working hard to reduce costs and investing in research for better varieties, it is competing with imported products grown and processed in countries with much lower cost structures. Labour is the highest individual input into growing pineapples and even though yields are higher in Australia than elsewhere, it is difficult to successfully compete in a global market. Continued imports mean reduced sales of Australian pineapples, which in turn depresses both the local fresh fruit and processed markets.

The Marketplace
Golden Circle pineapple is still a must-have in many of the nation's pantries.

Canned pineapple has many advantages: the canning or cooking process hygienically seals in goodness, consistent quality, ease of use, and lack of preservatives.

But to maintain and grow sales, it is essential that the company develop new and innovative products for the processed and fresh markets. It's also meant new packaging, such as glass jars.

Golden Circle has based product development on market research that shows increasing demand for snacks and meal solution foods for time-poor adults, who have fewer cooking skills and are from more diverse demographic backgrounds.

In the snack-food category, this has meant the development of Fruit Bites in a foil pull-top 140g can.

Canned pineapple, too, has undergone a transformation and is now available in a special pizza cut and in extra thin slices for use in toasted sandwiches and burgers. It's also being packaged in glass jars.

Two new ranges also use pineapple. Obsessions are liqueur-flavoured fruit in syrup, ideal as a quick dessert or as a sauce over meat dishes. And Heat & Serve vegetable simmer sauces such as Sweet and Sour and Spicy Thai also include this Golden Circle staple.

The company has also met the challenge in the fresh fruit market, overcoming consumer resistance because of the difficulty in selecting pineapple ready to eat, the often acidic taste and the mess associated with trimming.

With the opening of a huge cold room, fresh pre-cut pineapple is prepared and packaged in clear-tubs with resealable lids for immediate distribution around Australia. The range includes pineapple slices and pieces and whole cored and skinned pineapples are also available in clear plastic bags.

All these products have a shelf life of seven days.

Another great success story has been the Golden Circle Gold Wintersweet fresh pineapple - sold uncut, but minus its crown or 'topless'. Each of these pineapples, which taste exquisitely sweet, comes with a label that shows how it should be trimmed.

These positive responses to market needs have helped keep pineapple in the spotlight, offering fresh twists on an old favourite that has a place in the heart of most Australians. The fruit has long been identified with long hot tropical summers and just as these will continue, so will the enduring appeal of pineapples.