Taylor Family Produce A growing vegetable dynasty

Granite Belt farming enterprise, Taylor Family Produce, has been growing vegetables in Queensland for over a century. Today the business grows iceberg and cos lettuce, celery, silverbeet, wombok cabbage and cauliflower across 344 hectares of land spanning two locations.

Founded in 1914 in the north-western Brisbane suburb of Mitchelton, the family found success growing a range of English-style vegetables. By 1968 they had outgrown their land in Mitchelton so picked up and moved to the east-Brisbane suburb of Redland Bay.

In the early 90s, in order to extend their growing season, the family acquired a property on the Granite Belt in Amiens. At the same time the Taylor Family Produce company was established, and the reigns handed down to the fourth generation of Taylors – brothers Ray, Geoff, and Wayne.

Ray’s wife Connie, who also works in the business said purchasing the property at Amiens was a strategic one allowing them to harvest 12 months of the year.

In December 2021 the Taylors wrapped up their Redland Bay operation which, much in the same way as the Mitchelton property did, saw farming pushed out in favour of residential development.

In order to fill the gap left behind in their harvest schedule with the sale of the Redland Bay property, the family recently purchased another in Kalbar on the Scenic Rim.

“This will be our third growing season at Kalbar, with about 60 hectares of vegetables currently in the ground, up from 40 hectares last winter season,” Connie said.

Taylor Family Produce is certainly a family affair with three generations of Taylors currently working in the business. Eldest born son Ray is Managing Director of the Amiens property, Wayne is Managing Director of the Kalbar property and Geoff oversees transport, logistics and marketing. Connie looks after business administration while the brothers father William remains actively involved in the day-to-day running of the farms.

Over the past couple of years, the Taylors have seen a dramatic decrease in their production output brought about by the ongoing drought and COVID-19.

“Where we would usually plant in excess of 20 million seedlings per year, we’re now at half production,” Connie explained.

“Drought was the first major influencer for us which saw production drop around 20 per cent. Then with COVID we saw a further 30 per cent reduction. So, we’re currently sitting at around 50 per cent of what our ‘normal’ production quantities would be.”

When asked about drought mitigation strategies Connie said unlike other vegetable industries such as tomatoes or capsicums, it wasn’t viable for the Taylors to consider bringing in water.

“We did look into bringing in water but for the products we grow the margins are not there, so we just didn’t plant,” Connie said.

“Instead, we implement other water-saving techniques such as switching from overhead irrigation to trickle tap.”

In addition to supplying major supermarket chains domestically, Taylor Family Produce was a large exporter with product going to international markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore, the Pacific Islands and cruise liners.

“With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic we saw the demand for export dry up overnight,” Connie said.

“With COVID also came the shortfall in staff. Today we are just growing to what staff we can get. But that’s ok, because we are growing something, and we are able to harvest it.”

Connie explained that there was very little in the supply chain that hadn’t been affected by the pandemic in some way.

“We’ve struggled to access consumables such as film for the flow wrapping machine, pallets, those sorts of things,” she said.

“There have also been massive increases in the cost of fuel which has driven the price of everything through the roof.

“The other opposite extreme is that we’ve had seriously low pricing for our product.

“There are many other growers just like us, we’re all trying to sell the same product to the same market. It’s all a big juggling act.

“I like to think that there is a light at the end of the tunnel with the domestic borders and Australia opening back up. I think people are wanting to move, eat and be back to ‘normal’.”

Taylor Family Produce employs a large local workforce with 44 local employees supported by a multi-national harvest workforce. Respect is an important value for the farm with Connie saying they like to treat their staff as if they were their own family.

“We’ve always said that if our own children decide to work on a farm, that’s how we would like them to be treated. So, we aim to be approachable and respectful to our staff,” she said.

In December last year, Taylor Family Produce became Certified through Growcom’s Fair Farms program.

“Fair Farms is a good tick to have for your business,” Connie said.

“We supply Woolworths direct and you either had to do Sedex or Fair Farms. Yes, Sedex probably covers more global requirements but for the last three years we’ve been local and Fair Farms has been good for us.

“A real positive for us with Fair Farms is that because we ticked all the boxes that we treated our staff well – we now don’t have to do the audit again for another three years.

“The education component also opened us up to learning certain things like staff accommodation for example, which we had in place, but we’ve never had a recourse in place to go yes, that is right and refer back to.

Connie said the journey to becoming Fair Farms Certified was a simple one.

“We already had a lot of the required policies and procedures in place it was just a matter of doing a bit of a tidy up and update to make sure we were up to scratch with current requirements,” she said.

Connie added that she would absolutely recommend the Fair Farms program to other growers who are looking to complete a social compliance audit.

Taylor Family Produce has also recently commenced Growcom’s best management practice program for horticulture, Hort360.

“Again, we feel Hort360 is another great asset to have for the business,” Connie said.

“It’s about doing everything possible to reduce our impact on those around us and farming in a sustainable manner.”

With the Kalbar farm backing onto the local township, the Taylors are particularly aware of the noises, smells and impact the farm has on those around them.

“We’re used to farming in close proximity to residential developments having done so for many years at Redland Bay. So, participating in Hort360 is really a natural flow on and affirmation of those practices that we were already doing.”

Photography by Jayde Maree Photography