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February 2006
RIRDC Publication No 06/023
Introduction
The Herb & Spice industry
can be classed as a maturing industry with a current yearly domestic incremental
growth of 20% and an increasing presence in overseas markets.
Continued domestic expansion cannot be expected to last and the industry must aim towards increasing export capacity. Continued investment is required to maintain a high quality and consistent product capable of competing successfully in a highly competitive global market.
Background
The Australian herb &
spice industry began to accelerate in the early 1990’s but growth escalated
in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s due to innovative processing and capture
of overseas markets.
Major production areas tend to be located in the vicinity of cities; however pockets of production occur in more remote areas eg Central Queensland, The Atherton Tablelands, Eastern/Western Victoria & Mt Gambier.
The industry continues to be divided into different sections: Section 1 -Protected & field cropping, mainly supplying supermarket type operations. Section 2 - Field cropping, mainly supplying processing operations. Section 3 - mainly mixed & lifestyle cropping supplying local trade e.g. restaurants and farmer’s markets.
At this stage the industry has not replaced imports in the commodity type markets (e.g. dried herb & spices) and the anticipated culinary garlic industry has not evolved due to imports of cheap Chinese stock and lack of available virus free planting material in Australia.
Industry investment in the last 10 years has been significant at both grower and processor level and the industry is now being regarded as ‘real business’ gaining awards in both state and national agribusiness competitions.
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