Award winners eye export
Lettuce growers look at expansion plans
IF YOU’VE ever ordered lettuce on your Subway sandwich, chances are it came from the farms of Story Fresh.
The major leafy vegetable grower, owned by Geoffrey and Anne Story, took out the top gong at the Heritage Bank Business Excellence Awards last night 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 Jack’s, as well as hospitality businesses across Australia.
Mr Story said the business was a 52-week operation, an incredible achievement considering all properties were within an hour of each other.
“The number one crop is iceberg lettuce (and) we still do that today as well as cos lettuce,” he said.
“We’ve added baby leaves like spinach, rocket and all the red and green leaves. It’s all fresh, but we do that 52 weeks a year.
“We would do about four million kilograms of shredded lettuce and carrot products, and then we do another million kilograms of the baby leaves.
“We make close to a million serves of product a day.”
On top of growing the produce, Story Fresh’s 100 employees also run a full in-house processing operation, meaning the product leaves 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
❝We see a lot of potential in the future to use Wellcamp, but we’re still early in building the export business.
— Geoffrey Story
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. “There’s a lot of demand for Australian produce, it’s high quality and there’s a strong focus on food safety.”
Story Fresh also picked up the Innovation Award on Saturday in front of more than 400 people at the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba.