Third generation grower Scott Montague has been elected as chair of the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance. AFPA unanimously elected the Montague managing director to take over from Fresh Select’s John Said who served as AFPA Chair in 2022.
Montague has over 25 years’ experience in the fresh produce industry and has previously held a range of industry based roles.
Montague grow, pack and market a range of fresh produce including apples, pears, stone fruit, grapes, citrus and cherries, and also grow and market a range of branded apples well known to Australian consumers such as Jazz, Envy and Yello.
The election of Montague has set the AFPA’s agenda for the upcoming year with renewed focus on both sustainability throughout the supply chain and improving technical market access to capitalise on growth opportunities for the fresh produce industry in export markets.
“I am very focused on advancing our industry’s conversation around how we can address sustainability challenges and opportunities while also supporting growers’ profitability. The other key challenge is ensuring the growth of our industry, and that growth is going to come from new export opportunities, so maintaining focus on how we improve technical market access for the fresh produce industry will remain a key area of work for the AFPA,” said Montague.
The AFPA is made up of the largest growers in the fresh produce industry, representing half of the industry turnover annually. AFPA membership is at the CEO level of each of these businesses and advocacy from the AFPA covers a range of cross horticulture issues.
“As a group, AFPA members represent half the turnover of our sector, but importantly, across the membership we also partner with a supplier network of more than 1,000 fresh produce businesses. As we’ve done for the last four years, the AFPA will continue to provide focus, direction and leadership on the issues that really matter to Australia’s fresh produce growers”, said Montague.
