Pineapple lovers are being inspired to embrace an oversupply of the tropical fruit to cease tonnes of Australian-grown produce going to waste.
Millions of pineapples – or 70 per cent of the annual crop – is ripening unexpectedly after a chilly and moist snap in Queensland.
It is the primary mass pure flowering occasion in 50 years.
Samuel Pike, a fourth technology pineapple grower, stated farmers have been in a race in opposition to time.
“Usually a crop would spread out over eight to 10 months, but it’s pretty well all going to come within two weeks,” he instructed AAP.
Mr Pike inspired customers to take advantage of the glut.
“There’s going to be a lot of pineapple around, it’s going to be good quality and it’s going to be probably cheaper than you would normally see it,” he stated.
But the excess will probably be brief lived.
“Soon they’ll be very scarce and probably quite expensive,” Mr Pike stated.
Many pineapple growers will probably be unable to select their crops in time, forcing farmers to plough whole fields of rotten fruit again into the bottom.
“Take advantage of our misfortune and load up on a few pineapples cut them up and put them in the freezer and keep them for the rest of the year,” Mr Pike stated.
Rachel Chambers, chief government of business group Growcom, stated farmers would endure substantial losses.
“The plants will just get chopped up and returned to the earth,” she stated.
“There’s no imported pineapples, we don’t export the pineapples, so basically Australian consumers are the only chance we’ve got.”
Ms Chambers inspired customers to “eat through as many pineapples as they can”.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
