Goldpine
Darlings Fruit
Over the past 60 years, Darlings Fruit has worked hard to grow great fruit. With 80 hectares of orchards planted across Ettrick and Roxburgh in Central Otago, the long-established fruit business combines family traditions, a global reach, and sustainability in the same way it farms its fruit: meticulously, thoughtfully, and efficiently. We caught up with Stephen Darling, owner and orchard manager of Darlings Fruit, and chatted about life at the orchards.
The Darlings Fruit company that exists today is the result of generations of hard work. Stephen’s parents Bill and Joyce laid the initial roots in 1963, and the Darling kids grew up in the orchard business. In the late 1980s, Stephen and his wife, Sally, took over the packing side of the business alongside Stephen’s brother Mark, who took over the family orchard, expanding beyond traditional farming by establishing more orchards and a pack house in Ettrick. Stephen and Sally bought 17 hectares of orchard land in 2001, and then a further 40 hectares in 2010. The combined business now produces approximately 5,000 bins of apples per season and 350 tonnes of apricots, and fruits like peaches, cherries and pears are also a notable part of Darlings’ growing repertoire.
Stephen emphasised that Darlings Fruit is “a people business,” and it’s all about the team that makes it thrive. “We’ve got amazing staff . We want to give full credit to the awesome job they all do, because without them, we wouldn’t have a business.”
Stephen explained that fruit growing is very labour-intensive and highly dependent on people’s knowledge from season to season. Their permanent staff, and the help they get from travellers and RSE workers every year, creates accumulated knowledge integral to Darlings Fruit’s success.
Stephen explained that fruit growing is very labour-intensive and highly dependent on people’s knowledge from season to season. Their permanent staff, and the help they get from travellers and RSE workers every year, creates accumulated knowledge integral to Darlings Fruit’s success.
“I think what’s unique about us is that we have a common goal to produce amazingly good food that we sell worldwide, and everyone takes pride in achieving that. Whether it’s our local permanent team, our returning Pacific Island teams - some of those guys have been with us for 15 years - or our backpackers that just come in for a few weeks, we try and get everyone on the same page of what we’re trying to achieve.”
Sixty years of Darlings Fruit means sixty years of apple growing experience. This experience translates to a meticulous planting and harvesting process, and a keen eye on changing consumer trends. “It’s a multi-year project, planting and developing new blocks. We have ordered trees in the last couple of years that will be coming this year and next. It’s an ongoing process to decide the removal of blocks that we don’t want and that are not commercially viable and replace them with what we hope will be better options. Part of that is trying to read what people will want to eat in five to ten years, and we don’t know,” Stephen told us.
“It’s a gamble, it’s a risk, but we try and spread our range of crops to reflect changing trends around the world.”
Come spring, the Darlings Fruit team will monitor the weather and begin the thinning programme to reduce the number of fruits on each tree. This is done to create the “perfect, red apple” destined for export. White tarpaulin is also placed along the rows of apple trees to reflect the sun onto the fruit to create the optimal red apple.
Most of what Darlings Fruit produces is exported worldwide. Stephen explained that while the markets have been turbulent in recent years, it seems the global fruit trade is turning a welcome corner – and while producing high-quality fruit has always been a priority for Darlings Fruit, it’s especially essential at this time. “The market’s been challenging in the last two or three years. We are seeing an improvement, but everyone worldwide is feeling the difficulties post-COVID. There’s been so much disruption to people’s personal lives and routines, and I think there’s more insecurity around people’s ongoing work. I don’t think that’s any different in an Asian or European country, the USA or New Zealand. I think people have similar needs everywhere,” he explained.
“People are looking for better value, making it harder to achieve the high prices we need. We pay a lot of shipping costs, and we must get a high price for our fruit to pay the supply chain cost. That’s why high quality is really important.”
At Darlings Fruit, they endeavour to grow high-quality apples. “Whether it’s for sale here in New Zealand, or China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, the Middle East, the USA, all those countries, we’re trying to present the best quality we can to those customers,” he added.
Stephen said New Zealand is in a good position to achieve the high-quality fruit needed to set its produce apart in international markets.
While exporting has its challenges – quarantine requirements around pests and diseases, shipping costs, disruptions to shipping routes and increased labour costs – New Zealand’s exceptional food safety regulations result in one of “the world’s best kept secrets”, he said. “New Zealand actually produces the safest food in the world in terms of agrochemical usage. Our apple programme is world-leading in that we have close to zero agrochemical residues in our fruit. We have a very robust industry-based programme with a lot of science behind it that enables growers to use very soft chemicals that still control the pests.” This, alongside a rigorous washing process and residue testing apples before they leave our shores, sets the country’s fruit apart from its competitors.
“Even with the challenges of international shipping, we still achieve excellent, safe fruit on a global scale, and it’s something I think New Zealand should be proud of.”
New Zealand’s unique geographical position offers an advantage for fruit growing, particularly in Central Otago. Stephen said it is one of the best set-up countries in the world climatically. “In the south and Central Otago, all the rain that comes through from the Tasman Sea hits the West Coast, fills up the hydro lakes, and then can be utilised for horticultural production. That’s really important. Our climate is ideal for apple growing, and I believe where we are here has a great future as a food producing area for New Zealand, and New Zealand is perfect for producing food for the world,” he said.
Sustainability at Darlings Fruit is key to producing fruit in the unique climate of Central Otago. Stephen explained that the entire orchard programme aims to be as sustainable as possible, from implementing processes as simple as monitoring fuel usage and recycling what they can, to returning organic matter from production to soil and working with the surrounding environment.
Like all horticultural businesses, water usage is key; Darlings Fruit is no stranger to this. Stephen said the orchards use local water resources and a unique irrigation system to supplement water usage. “Energy, water, soil and the natural environment around us, we look after as best we can,” Stephen explained. “Without water, we couldn’t operate. We’re blessed to have the Clutha River here in the Teviot Valley. Our Ettrick orchard utilises the Clutha, and our Roxburgh East orchard benefits from the Teviot irrigation scheme sourced from a high-country lake. This water is essential for irrigation and frost protection. All our orchards have overhead water systems to combat frost in winter and to cool fruit and prevent sunburn in summer when temperatures exceed 28 to 29 degrees.”
Darlings Fruit shows how teamwork, prioritising quality, and adaptability are foundational to a longstanding fruit-growing business. To maintain this, Stephen said he and the team are continually looking for new opportunities. “We want to do what we’re doing better. We’re looking at what that means, in terms of how we can become more efficient, how we can produce better quality fruit, and how we can do a great job all round.”
