A group of Evans & Tate grape growers is understood to have secured price rises for its fruit after agreeing to new five-year grape supply contracts with the receiver of the collapsed winery.
WA Business News has been told the growers secured price increases of about 20 per cent after demand for grapes skyrocketed following recent predictions that next year’s national grape harvest would fall by 50 per cent due to drought on the eastern seaboard.
Industry sources have told WA Business News several growers have attracted prices of about $1,800 per tonne for white varieties and $1,500/t for red varieties.
The new deals comes after E&T’s receivers slashed its grape requirement by half and moved to renegotiate terms with its remaining growers.
Mark McAuliffe is representing a group of about a dozen growers, confirming to WA Business News that several had agreed to sell about 1,700t of fruit to E&T’s receivers for a period of five years.
Mr McAuliffe refused to speculate on the price they achieved but said growers had been experiencing the strongest demand yet for fruit.
A separate group of former E&T growers, represented by grape grower and former E&T executive Mike Calneggia, has committed fruit to other sources for prices that are also expected to be higher than E&T had previously been paying.
