Australia has long been a major exporter of fresh produce to countries around the world. Our agricultural sector plays an important role in supplying global food markets with everything from citrus and table grapes to meat and seafood.
But for many growers and exporters, reaching those international markets with world-class products relies on more than just what happens on the farm. The infrastructure connecting producers to ports and global supply chains is just as vital as product quality.
A large portion of the significant volume of citrus produced in the Riverland each year is destined for international markets. However, until recently, South Australia did not have a Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF)-accredited cold treatment facility, which is required for many horticultural exports. Cold treatment is a quarantine process required by many of Australia’s major export markets to ensure fresh produce meets strict biosecurity standards, particularly for pests such as fruit fly.
Without a certified facility in South Australia, growers and exporters have often had to transport fruit interstate before the export process could begin.
In conversations with growers and exporters across South Australia’s Riverland region, a key challenge was raised repeatedly: that fruit grown in the region often has to travel interstate before it can even begin its export journey.
During a recent visit by the Lineage team to the Riverland, a stone fruit grower highlighted that the current shipping arrangements are sometimes adding up to six days to their transit window. In practice, this meant citrus harvested in the Riverland was regularly transported on a nine-hour journey to cold storage facilities in Victoria to complete the required treatment process. From there, shipments were typically exported through the Port of Melbourne rather than a South Australian port.
Riverland growers have noted that this extra time can significantly compromise the shelf-life and natural sweetness of their products, leading to a higher volume of customer rejections.
Ultimately, these logistical bottlenecks force a price markup that makes their premium Australian produce less competitive against local options in Asian markets.
While this pathway enabled some access to global markets, it also added time and cost to the supply chain. For fresh produce such as citrus, longer transport distances and additional handling make logistics more complex when exporters are working to meet shipping schedules and, importantly, maintain product quality.
Infrastructure gaps like this are not unique to South Australia. Around the world, food producers often depend on logistics and cold chain infrastructure that needs to evolve alongside growing export markets. Cold chain operators like Lineage are increasingly working closely with customers and industry partners to develop infrastructure that responds directly to these needs.
Securing the DAFF certification for Lineage’s Edinburgh Parks facility in South Australia earlier this year enables the site to manage cold treatment for horticultural exports, which means exporters can complete the required treatment without having to send fruit interstate.
One local grower said this will be a gamechanger for their business, with better supply chain infrastructure in place to help them expand their operations.
The Edinburgh Parks facility sits close to key transport links and within close reach of the Riverland growing region, providing a more direct pathway to international markets through Port Adelaide. Lineage has worked closely with Flinders Port Holdings to help streamline this supply chain and create a more efficient route from growers to port.
Lineage and Flinders Port Holdings’ business development teams have worked closely across the Riverland region to engage with export customers and growers who currently rely on Victorian ports for their fresh produce exports. Together, the teams have developed a streamlined supply chain model, redirecting exports back through South Australian Ports, designed to deliver meaningful financial benefits for growers and exporters, helping them remain competitive in a highly commoditised global market.
As the citrus season approaches, Lineage is working closely with growers and exporters across the Riverland region to begin onboarding shipments through the facility. These early exports will help demonstrate how a South Australia-based treatment and export pathway can support the continued growth of the state’s horticulture industry.
This type of customer-led infrastructure development is becoming increasingly important as food producers expand into global markets. Lineage has taken a similar approach with recent partnerships in New Zealand, expanding its cold storage capacity in Hawke’s Bay to support the export growth of pet nutrition company ZIWI. The facility significantly expands Lineage’s existing footprint in the region and directly supports ZIWI’s export volumes.
The site sits close to production and export infrastructure and provides multi-temperature storage designed to support both domestic distribution and international shipments, with food safety standards aligned with global export requirements. Projects like this show how cold chain infrastructure often develops alongside the needs of food producers and exporters.
As global demand for high-quality food continues to grow, the logistics networks supporting exporters must scale accordingly. For regions such as South Australia, investment in cold chain infrastructure can strengthen supply chains and open new export pathways for producers.
For citrus growers in the Riverland, shorter and more direct export routes help fruit reach international markets faster, preserving the quality and freshness that we all know and love, and that Australian growers and exporters can be proud of.
