At a time when arable farmers are doing it tough, brothers Michael and Nick Tayler say their contract supplying carrots for the Japanese juice market has helped.
Each year, the South Canterbury farmers grow a significant tonnage of carrots that are juiced into a concentrate and exported north, enjoyed by health-conscious consumers in Japan.
Michael says their contract with Timaru company Juice Products New Zealand (JP-NZ) has been an asset to the business.
“It’s definitely a challenging time for arable farming at the moment. The gross margins on many of our crops are tight, caused by low commodity product prices combined with a huge lift in our growing costs.
“Having the carrot contract has helped because it utilises our machinery more efficiently and dilutes our exposure to the traditional commodity markets.”
The Tayler brothers, who farm around 1000ha, also grow process potatoes for Bluebird Foods and McCain, as well as specialist brassica crops, wheat, barley, maize, peas, and turf ryegrass mainly for the American market.
“One of the strengths of our business, and many arable farms, is that we grow a broad range of crops and have reasonably long rotations, which means we’re less dependent on one commodity,” says Michael, a Federated Farmers Arable Council member and chair of United Wheat Growers NZ.
“This spreads our risk out, so, if the price of one crop is down, another might be up.
“In saying that, margins across all crops have been squeezed over the past few years.”
The Taylers hadn’t been growing carrots before they struck a deal with JP-NZ back in 2009.
“There were two guys from Auckland who did a lot of trading in juices around the world, who purchased an existing business before deciding to create a new entity and build a new juicing factory,” Michael explains.
“They liked South Canterbury because of its good soils, reliable water and temperate climate, making it an ideal growing area for carrots.
“Around 2009, some local growers were approached and asked if they would be interested in suppling carrots for this new factory.”
JP-NZ, acquired in 2014 by major Japanese company Sumitomo Corporation, is a leading processor of raw carrots into high-quality carrot juice concentrates, exported mainly to countries in Asia, North America and Australasia.
Michael says there are now a small, dedicated number of Canterbury growers supplying carrots to JP-NZ, but he says it isn’t a crop you can move into easily.
“It is a specialist crop and one that requires a lot of capital-intensive machinery. It’s not as easy as thinking, ‘Ok, the wheat price is down, so I might grow some juicing carrots this year’. You can’t really just jump in and out of these sort of crops.
“An advantage for us is that a lot of the machinery we use to harvest and transport our potatoes we can also use for carrots. Our potato harvester is also our carrot harvester.”
He says the carrots need to go through a washing process before they’re sent off to JP-NZ’s factory.
Originally, all the carrots were sent straight from the paddock to be washed in Washdyke, Timaru, before going on to the factory. This wasn’t efficient, so the Taylers set up a washing company with neighbours Leighton and Michelle Pye, of Pye Group.
Growing carrots can also be hard on the soil, Michael says.
“With potatoes, we harvest and process them up until autumn, then store the balance in temperature-controlled sheds to be used later in the year as the factory demand them.
“But with carrots, they won’t keep in big sheds, so we effectively store them ‘in-field’ and have to harvest them as the factory needs them right through the winter.
“If it gets really wet, that’s hard on the soil structure, and hard on the machinery and staff.”
Winter harvesting means the crop following carrots is late to be planted as well.
Michael, who was last in Japan in November 2023, says carrot juice is much more popular there than here at home.
“They seem to use a lot of our carrot juice as a base and blend it with juices like orange or blackcurrant and other sorts of juices.
“If you go to a vending machine here you’ll get Sprite or Coke or whatever, but over there they’ve got little cardboard boxes of healthier options.
“During our last trip up there, they were releasing a pure, 100% carrot-only juice. It’s obviously very good for you.”
Tayler admits plenty of people are intrigued to learn where their carrots end up.
“It is an interesting story, and really satisfying to see New Zealand carrot juice on the supermarket shelves in Japan.
“JP-NZ and the Canterbury growers have developed a good relationship with the Japanese, which hopefully will continue for years to come.”
Federated Farmers, New Zealand’s leading independent rural advocacy organisation, has established a news and insights partnership with AgriHQ, the country’s leading rural publisher, to give the farmers of New Zealand a more informed, united and stronger voice. Federated Farmers news and commentary appears each week in its own section of the Farmers Weekly print edition and online.
