Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm founders have repurchased the farm

After selling to The Waratah Group (TWG) in 2016 they've repurchased the property in 2022 and have renamed it Rocky Creek Strawberry farm as TWG kept the Sunny Ridge brand.

Located at Main Ridge and owned by fourth generation father and son farmers Mick and Matt Gallace, they're excited to have just wrapped up their first harvest season back at their 60-year-old family farm.

"It was great to see a lot of customers coming back who would say 'oh we haven't been to Sunny Ridge since you sold' and they all said they're glad we're back," Matt said.

Mick said TWG were struggling with the business following COVID-19 and this was one of the reasons for them to sell, they found it hard keeping up visitation numbers and managing the business side of the farm as they focused more on wholesale production.

"Plus the soils here, if you're not familiar with these soils, well, they're not forgiving," Mick said.

"So I think they struggled with the yields that were coming from these particular properties and they saw that the land values are so high, and couldn't justify continuing to grow strawberries in this area.

"And we've got the history and being on the property for, say, 60 odd years, so I guess we understand it better and we understand our customers as well, which I think is the key."

READ MORE:

Mick said it was a wet start to the season which made it difficult to establish plants, but it was great to be back and see their returning customers.

"Being farmers you are forever optimistic that next year will be better than the previous year, and really to be a farmer you do have to be optimistic," he said.

"The soil hasn't been looked after as well as we would've done it, so we're in the process of actually spelling quite a few fields to return them back and it's all about adding the inputs to get the soil right where the strawberries are going to thrive."

"We've leased another property so we can spell the land that needs the rest and rebuild the soil up again.

"It'll come back, it just needs time, all the microbes and bacteria and organic matter is very important."

Matt said traditionally commercial varieties of strawberries have a trade off between yield and flavour, with higher yield, comes less flavour.

"We made the decision or made the decision early on to forego yield for flavour and that's what became synonymous with Sunny Ridge, we grew strawberries that you would always know what you were going to get," he said.

"Whereas other growers may choose the yield because farming is all about yield, price per kilo and yield that's the only thing that you can really manage a profit and loss on, but we forego that, and we're able to get higher price I guess."

Mick agreed, and said it was always important from the beginning to focus on flavour.

"We always concentrated on growing berries that would eat well, that way you build loyalty in your brand because people are happy with it," he said.

"We felt that was the way to sort of run our operation because you know as farmers, we're really passionate and proud of what we grow, so we want to share that passion with the public."