Agriculture
4 September, 2023
Profit, planting jump boost company line
THE greenfield planting of 407 hectares at Cobram Estate Boort has increased the company’s Australian grove area by 6.2 per cent. Investors were told last week that the new planting, together with the maturing of Australian groves will provide the...
THE greenfield planting of 407 hectares at Cobram Estate Boort has increased the company’s Australian grove area by 6.2 per cent.
Investors were told last week that the new planting, together with the maturing of Australian groves will provide the company with an organically increasing supply of Australian extra virgin olive oil as the trees mature.
The release of the company’s annual report plans for a 3.3 cent dividend to shareholders in December 2023.
Joint chief executive officer Sam Beaton said the expanded grove at Boort would deliver incremental profit and cashflow due to production costs being relatively fixed as trees matured.
Currently, only 61 per cent of the Cobram Estate’s groves have matured.
“That mean’s 30 per cent of our trees are not yet mature. They will hit maturation in year eight after planting and that gives a lot of growth as they get older,” Mr Beaton said.
“We have a lot of young trees at Boort. We had planted more trees about six years ago and then purchased adjacent ground that was used for the latest planting.” Planting of varieties, finished in March and April, included picual, coratina, and hojiblanca and takes the Boort grove size to 3508 hectares.
The company now has more than 2.6 million olive trees on more than 7000 hectares at Boundary Bend, Boort, and Wemen
Mr Beaton said grove expansion and the new Boort processing mill were significant for the town and also on a global scale for the olive industry.
Cobram Estate’s combined milling capacity in Australia is now 112 tonnes of olives an hour and 6.8 million litres of olive oil storage.
Mr Beaton told the Loddon Herald that Cobram Estate had a unique structure, being full vertically integrated.
“Ninety per cent of our oil comes from our own groves and we have our own brand as well,” he said. “This puts us in a unique position.
“Cobram Estate is Australia’s largest vertically integrated olive farmer and marketer of premium quality extra virgin olive oil.
“Whilst achieving sales growth is a key objective of the business, we are also focused on increasing the return per litre (and hence our margin) on each litre of olive oil we sell.
“To this end, the business is focused on growing our higher margin packaged goods sales, particularly branded product sales, and on delivering incremental growth through the launch of higher value items across grocery and online sales channels.”
Cobram Estate reported a 21 per cent jump in sales revenue for the year to $169 million and a $7.7 million profit after tax, compared with a $700,000 loss the previous financial year.
Shares in the company were trading up at $1.33 on Tuesday.