A short history of Agri Australis/Ferrero in Australia.
The Group has farms in Chile, Argentina, Georgia and Serbia, and in 2011 began prospecting for a suitable site in Australia. Agri Australis bought two farms, Dellapool and Arrambee, in 2013 and hazelnut plantings started in 2014 with the millionth tree planted in 2018. They expected to harvest around 5000t from the 2000Ha.
There is limited information about what went wrong, but the area is considered semi-arid, and despite good irrigaition, the hot summers were perhaps too hot. For more information, check out
Australian Financial Reviews “Chocolate maker abandons $70m Ferrero Rocher nut orchards” (23.10.23)
Australian Rural and Regional News “Ferrero shuts down hazelnut projects” (2.11.23)
ABC Rural “Ferrero Group, the company behind Nutella and Ferrero Rocher to stop growing hazelnuts in Australia” (15.11.23)
Meanwhile, in Turkey, the crop from their 2023 harvest is estimated at 600,000T. This is lower than the initial Turkish estimate of 718,000T. Dry weather during the nut development stage in spring is blamed. Read more at freshplaza.com.
The Commodity Board is reporting some jiggery-pokery with the pricing, with the price of hazels increasing sharply, while demand in Europe is still low. Read more at commodity-board.com/what-is-happening-in-the-turkish-hazelnut-market-will-prices-fall//