The company has been told the shortage of pickers has been driving up harvest costs, and SPC management was meeting this week to see if there was some way of compensating growers for the increased picking bills.
SPC operations manager Robert Giles said the company had already lifted the price it paid for pears by about 10 per cent for this season.
“Some growers are quite confident they will have labour in place while others are not so certain,” Mr Giles said.
“So we are getting different signals.”
SPC packed about 3200 tonnes of apricots this season, compared to about 2700 tonnes last year.
“There's no doubt this season is better than last year,” Mr Giles said.
“That's good for us, because the supply chain was just about empty. We had sold all of our apricot packs.”
The snack pack production line has been running day and night for the past few months.
The pandemic may have contributed towards a strong sale year for apricots, particularly the snack pack lines.
Mr Giles believes the move towards home-delivered meals and the popularity of pre-prepared meals probably added to the demand for the compact fruit products.
“We took all the peaches and apricots we could get,” he said.
In the Victorian Parliament this week, State Member for Northern Province Wendy Lovell continued her criticism of the government's slow response in allowing pacific Islanders into the state to assist with the harvest.
Speaking in the Legislative Council Ms Lovell said growers had no idea of the costs yet and when the first workers would arrive.
The recently announced scheme will see the workers quarantine in Tasmania before their arrival in Victoria.
“There are also concerns that Tasmanian labour needs will take priority over Victoria’s needs,” Ms Lovell said.
