The Mitolo Group farming operations division began in 1989 and now consists of 47,000 acres of land with some 4,000 acres of potatoes and 600 acres of onions now being grown. This acreage is cropped on a rotational basis to ensure sustainability and quality.
Our Waikerie and Pinnaroo farms break with tradition to create new growing benchmarks by constantly developing ways of improving growing and harvesting techniques. The farming operations use the world's latest growing and harvesting techniques and only ecologically-sound farming practices.
Potatoes are harvested at night during summer to capture ideal temperatures and are always washed within hours of harvest to ensure optimum freshness. All raw produce is also transported from the farms by tautliner trailers to minimise the effect of weather conditions.
Onions are harvested at Waikerie in February, March and April. The farm has cool room storage capacity for almost 10,000 tonnes of onions, including one of the largest cool room storage facilities in Australia. Outside storage reaches almost 9,000 tonnes. This enables it to meet market demands through to December.
Over the years, the Mitolo Group has established a close relationship with a network of reliable, valued growers throughout South Australia and Western Victoria for its consistent supply of high quality produce.
Growers supply the company with quality potatoes and onions from districts as diverse as the Adelaide Plains, Adelaide Hills, the Lakes District, the Upper and Lower Murray regions, Mallee District, both the Upper and Lower South East regions and Portland, Victoria. This diversity of locations is unique in Australia and leads to the harvesting of potatoes all year round. This is something that has not been achieved anywhere else in the world.
Mitolo Group customers benefit from such a spread of regions because they can be assured of receiving year-round quality supply of produce without the risk of non-availability of particular products.