New variety of dryland peanut ready to harvest

CEO Sonie Crumpton said they run their own breeding program, where they focus on new varieties that benefit both the grower and customer.

"The main thing we are doing is developing new varieties of peanuts for the dryland area. We are focusing on dryland peanuts for production in the South Burnett," he said.

"The new variety we are looking at is called Pickering, named after one of my brother's mates Liam Pickering. It's a big solid bush a lot like Liam actually.

"It also has nice even maturing kernels."

Mr Crumpton said they had been involved in a breeding program for more than 10 years, trialling many varieties of of peanuts but with four of five staple types they had in production every year.

"There are Runner and Virginia types, and there are always a few that come and go," he said.

"It all comes down to what return the growers get."

Five to six years ago the Crumptons started growing macadamias, and have their first mechanical harvest this season.

"We are the largest and one of the only growers of macadamias in the South Burnett," Mr Crumpton said.

"You have to get the macadamias in the driers really quick because they come off so wet and they need to be dehulled so it's a totally different process to harvesting peanuts.

"It will be a small production this year and then increase...We don't process our own macadamias, we are just going to grow them."

Crumptons general manager Daniel Cook said their aim was to ensure all of their customers received the same amount of attention, regardless of the size of the company.

"We have quite a big spread between multinationals and major Australian food companies, as well as smaller customers. They are all important to us, so we treat them the same," he said.

"We supply lots of smaller guys, like Peanut Van, Belvedere Peanuts, various customers in Sydney and Melbourne as well as Coles and Woolworths.

"If someone wants to buy a pallet for a tonne of peanuts every two months they get the same attention as someone who wants to buy a 30 tonne truckload."

Mr Cook said they have between 40 and 60 peanut growers that supply Crumptons, as well as growing their own crop. They export small amounts but the majority of our sales and distribution is in Australia.

"The majority of our growers are in the south Burnett around Kingaroy and we've got a few growers in the Bundaberg area," he said.

"Our family farms will produce about 10 per cent of the peanuts that we process."

Mr Crumpton said with the good rainfall they have had and market prices, they are looking forward to a good harvest.

"Presently the price of imported peanuts has crept up a bit, so It's going to be a good year for us, I think...we have improved quantity but we have quality too," he said.

"We have had reasonable planting, so I think we will get above average intake this year, which will be good to see because the last three years prior have been below average...it's long overdue."