Australian Ascent
The growth of Tripod Farmers Group is the Australian version of the typical American success story.
They started small in 1989. Two brothers (Frank and Joe Ruffo) married two sisters (Angela and Carmel Candeloro), taking over their father-in-law’s 15-acre lettuce farm in Bacchus Marsh, near Melbourne. All remain active in the business today.
“They started off growing the full-head variety – whole lettuces. And then the market in Australia changed and moved more into the baby leaf, then the precut baby leaf salads, and we started doing a combination of both,” says Chief Operating Officer Jay Beshara. “We started processing as soon as we got into the baby leaf because we had to give it a wash right away.”
In 2000, Tripod began processing in a small facility containing a single wash line. In spite of a nearly decade-long duel with drought, the company has been on an upward growth trajectory, seeing sales increase about 10 percent annually.
Tripod now farms more than 2,000 acres in the Gippsland and Sunraysia regions of Victoria in addition to Western Melbourne, which have different climates and enable the company to keep product flowing. Workers still harvest crops by hand.
While Tripod started with five employees; it now has 350. The company distributes across Australia and beyond.
“Foodservice is a big part of our business – retail as well,” said Joe Ruffo, director of sales and production. “We’re one of the largest grower-sellers in Australia as far as baby leaf. It’s just expanding more with customer demand.”
A Matter of Convenience
As is the case in so many other parts of the world, Australians are pressed for time and looking for convenience in food preparation. Tripod has capitalized on that by developing several product lines including Wash n’Toss, Supa Salad and Cos! It’s Yummy, while producing private label items. It also exports under the BM Fresh brand.
About six years ago, the company built a new processing facility. A year ago, it added a Turatti air dryer to help maintain the integrity of fragile products and extend shelf life.
“We’ve gone from a wash-before-use product that we would still wash in our facility but the consumer did need to wash before consumption – and we still offer those products – but we also now offer a washed ready-to-eat product triple-washed in our facility,” said Bashara. “When it comes to the finished goods, they are washed, ready to eat, and the consumer can eat straight from the pack.”
Besides baby leaf salads, Tripod produces gourmet salad mix, spinach, rocket, baby cos lettuce, mache, watercress, baby kale and a proprietary wasabi salad, which Beshara said is similar to what Americans know as “hot rocket.”
“We were approached by one of our seed companies and as a part of that, we negotiated an exclusivity agreement with that product for Australia,” Beshara said. “We’ve made a heavy investment to get that off the ground …and now it’s one of our bigger lines.”
So is kale, with its super status as a superfood.
“Everybody’s been really focused on kale at the moment,” Beshara said. “It’s a great product, has a lot of health benefits, and it’s quite a robust product as well … that’s important, it has to be able to take the triple-wash process and drying process.”
Because the company handles everything from growing and harvest to processing and distribution, it doesn’t take long to get to customers.
“Our total integration system means that we can have product at market within 24 hours of harvest,” Ruffo said.
Overcoming Drought
The years 1998 to 2007 were challenging. In fact, the company ceased growing head lettuce for a time during that period, concentrating only on baby leaf with the limited water allocations it had.
“2006 was really when it got quite bad,” Beshara said, “and we had to make the decision because we didn’t have enough water to grow both types.”
One year, they received about 5 percent of their normal water allotment. Another, there was none.
It still smarts.
“It was very difficult for a long time,” Beshara said.
As a result, they now rely on new, independent water sources from reservoirs to irrigate.
“We try to drought-proof ourselves,” Beshara said.
Tripod has resumed growing head lettuce. And the company is introducing citrus and beans in whole commodities, for now.
“We didn’t think the business would get as big as what it is,” Ruffo said. “But because we’re always quality conscious, and we’ve been able to create customer demand, it’s big.”
Kathy Gibbons, contributing writer
