![[NSW] Blueberries $10 for a Box of 12 Trays @ Harris Farm (Selected Stores)](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/42/579142.jpg?h=74a3285f)
Available at all Harris farms
Trying not to do what the Violit did from Charlie and chocolate factory
[NSW] Blueberries $10 for a Box of 12 Trays @ Harris Farm (Selected Stores)
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Gotchas on 07/11/2020 - 10:33 files.ozbargain.com.au (3565 clicks)
Last edited 09/11/2020 - 11:06 by 2 other users
Last edited 09/11/2020 - 11:06 by 2 other users
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Does anyone know when this promortion ends?
When it runs out.
Selling them this cheap… they must be in a jam
That's going into my dad joke archive
It was a berry good one, wasn't it.
They are trying to avoid a currant account deficit.
There's a blue wave at HF today.
😂
smurfalicious
I got a box. They're tasty but better give to friends or eat them fast.
Just freeze?
Is this every Harris Farm in NSW?
The Penno one had maybe 100, but they seemed to be going quickly.
I got the last non-Driscoll's, as they seemed to be quite ripe and quite a few punnets were mouldy.If you want to buy it to consume quickly or bake a cake, then it's a great bargain (as long as you inspect them properly), but if you were planning to leave them in the fridge for a week, then don't bother.
blueberry pie time
Did you have to do this to me? 🙄 bb pies are the best 😊
i thought my local greengrocer was decently priced - driscolls blueberries for usually 1.50 each
My tray is perfect. A little tart in taste, but firm and good quality. Will freeze half and eat the rest.
I’m not in NSW
Sayonara then.
Thanks for the info, I'll mark it down in the file.
Thank you
A comma makes all the difference.
Blueberries $10 for a Box of 12 Trays @Harris farm
I.e 12 trays or 12 punnets (1 tray)
Not at every Harris Farm
True, not available at Harris Farms Leichhardt, NSW
Wasted my time.Pro tip - call the store before you waste your time
Oh yeah, that's what people normally do before they go to supermarkets.
The deal description is misleading, isn't it? Thanks me who proved it.
Hi
Ale…Karen!
Anyone know if St Ives or Pennant Hills store have this deal?
ThanksPenno had ~20 boxes left about 3pm
(they may restock tomorrow?)
Thanks Op. Was going to walk there today. Took the car and bought 10 trays to freeze. Still plenty left at my local.
No such deal at Boronia Park. Good luck with others.
Has anyone seen it in manly?
Not in Gladesville.
Any left at Broadway? Don't want to waste a trip.
Nvm went anyway, still quite a few left at Broadway, just got a tray.
I compared the prices of fruits between HF and Woolworths to see if it is worth driving to HF.
HF's $100 Office fruit box (100 fruits) is costing $93 at Woolies.WW wins.
HF's $35 Value office fruit box (50 pieces) is costing $48 at Woolies.HF wins.50 Pieces box doesn't have any berries, but Aldi's berries are cheaper than WW's from observation.
Conclusion:
It is cheaper to buy the $35 box from HF and get missing fruits from Aldi if those shops are convenient to go.
Unfortunately "Peanut money, you're turning violet Peanut money!", is probably not going to turn out to be a classic line, sorry.
Damn, I just got this lot for $30 at safeway
They're class 2 berries but still not too bad.
We've had a lot of rain here in Coffs harbour and when you add heat, you get splits and fruit fly damage.
Yes, we grow blueberries that are marketed through driscoll's =/
What's class 2 vs class 1. Any lower classes?
The ones I got today were big and firm and delicious, mixed with small ones.
Are they being discounted because this is peak season and have to be picked and there's just too much supply or it's just the lot of rain (plus heat leading to splits & fruit fly damage)? I was walking around my suburb and saw that a nearby house had a blueberry tree (in a pot) that was fruiting. I don't know why they hadn't picked them given the number of possums around my area.
2 years ago HF had a similar discount of trays of Ozberries. Was it because they were just entering the market or a lot of rain again? I don't recall a tray special last year.
I read recently that it's hard to make a lot of money from blueberries because everyone's growing them. Is this the case (prices down and margins thinner)?
Class 2 = over ripe, under sized, splits, soft, leaking, fruit fly or slight mold
2 years ago it was the same thing. Rain + heat
Last year was a good year as long as you had water to irrigate. Since ther was a "drought" we didnt have the issue of rain + heat as a major issue.
Blueberries sure arent as profitable as they used to be but if you can get fruit between March - June, you'll do okay for the year.
We're seeing a move from blueberries into Raspeberries and blackberries here
Very interesting info.
Can you give an indication of how big your operation is e.g. number of trees and average produce per tree?
Does your wholesale price per 125g punnet vary throughout the year; what does it average roughly?
Do you grow anything else? If not, is there a risk in having all your eggs in the one basket?
Cheers
@ihbh: Over 30K plants but hard to give you average product per plant as we've got several varities, different growth stages and different growing mediums (in the ground with no covering vs hyrdroponics under tunnels.)
We dont think about 125g punnets, we talk about return on trays (12 punnets) and it varies from around $80 a tray - $21 a tray for first class fruit.
Yep, have diversified into other berries :)
over 30k
Holly cow. What's the minimum scale to survive as blueberry grower?
return
Net after variable, or variable and fixed costs, or is it revenue?
How can you make $80 on 12 punnets, roughly $6.50 a punnet? Even in winter they barely sell for that.
Does $10 a tray cover variable costs?
Re below, is Ozberries a brand of Ozgroup (edit: yes, Googled) - I bought around 20 trays 2 years ago and they were perfect. Not the price growers need, but at least they didn't get composted.
Q1. How does Chile do frozen blueberries so cheap - cost of labour?
Q2. There really is no difference between organic and inorganic blueberries, is there? Skin too thin to take anything, and growers would try to avoid pests?
More interestingly: do you like blueberries or are you sick of them cos you grow them? :)
@mrshorty: In truth ill only "eat" 2 varieties now, First blush and Splash. They're large, crisp/crunchy, have an amazing flavour and pretty sure they've got something addictive in them haha
Other berries ill just sample here and there but yes, the law of diminishing returns has kicked in. The more ive had, the less satifiscation ive had from them.
Im starting to get that way with our blackberries now too :(
@sund00bie: Is there a way to tell the difference between the varieties in the shop? The only differences I see are size and colour.
That's interesting, so the classes are assigned when picked? They'll package and sell berries that are split or have fruit fly?
And I always thought Driscoll's was a producer with a very big farm somewhere, I've learnt something.
Class is assigned after sorting and packaging takes place.
The sorting machine takes out the bad stuff but clearly, machines are not perfect :(
Once they're packed they go to Q/A for human inspection. It's here they do the random spot check and determine the class.
Sadly if there's one bad punnet in a try, the whole pallet gets downgraded. Its why you will still get perfectly acceptable and amazing fruit in "class 2" berries, but the opposite is also true, you might get some shitty fruit in class one.
Driscoll’s prime function is actually as a genetics company. They sell patented plant varieties and they agree to market the produce for us. The largest suppliers of fruit would be Costa and Ozgroup co-op (we're part of Ozgroup)
Thank you, that's very interesting!
I've stopped buying blueberries and strawberries, even on special. Most taste sour or unripe
From what I've noticed, the bigger they are the nicer they are, so you can generally tell just by looking. Driscolls especially are good at certain times of year, other times, not so much.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the berries in this country but never ever seem to get the taste and the sweetness that you get on the old continent. So many times have I found them to be a total let down!
yeah berries should be nice and sweet with a fragrance
It’s the climate. Berries And fruit taste different in Europe.
Don't know what country you're referring to, but I've had Europeans tell me the same thing in reverse, that they can't get them as nice as ours. But our berries do definitely differ depending on time of year, and I generally grab them when they look good.
I don't think it's as broad as the whole continent. I've had the best PYO strawberries ever in Kent, England, then the next week picked more at a different farm and they were tart.
I've had gorgeous tomatoes in Italy, and then bought a huge tray of cherry tomatoes in France that were pretty tasteless.
Though I will concede that it's very difficult to get any good tasting strawberry or normal-sized tomato in Australia.
They sold out at my local, had loads yesterday but checked this afternoon and none left. Got two trays but wish I bought more, if only I had a bigger freezer. I love when Harris Farm do these specials, hopefully a nice big tray of sweet and juicy mangos will be next :)
A few weeks ago my local HF has $20 trays of mangoes - they were certainly a lower class, but for my $20 I got over 30 mangoes, and we ate mangoes for days, for dessert, smoothies, my wife made mango chutney, and we still have some in the freezer.
Randwick reporting in.
I finally showed up at a time when they had some, and bought a tray. There were at least a couple dozen trays available as at 45-60 minutes ago.
"zGroup Co-op" is the brand on mine, from North Boambee Valley NSW and here's the report:
- firm and good "eating fresh" texture and fruit consistency. Recommended if you like fresh blueberries!
- sweet, some with a hint of tartness
- been through 4 of the 12 boxes so far to wash to eat immediately (hungry), and found only three bad ones altogether
- stem ends DO NOT any white on them (as older berries sometimes get if they were picked too long ago)
- mix of sizes, from small to really large, so not sorted as many brands tend to be into punnets of smallish ones and punnets of larger ones
- box says the co-op is "100% farmer owned", so I feel good about this purchase
Heck of a deal… if I had more freezer space, I'd buy another tray
Thank you for supporting us :)
An "Ozgroup co-op." member :)
LOL, yes, I realized that the big blue circle next to "zGroup" was supposed to be an "O" and not just a logo graphic after I'd posted, when it was too late to edit it. ;-)
I'm very pleased with the quality of the fruit. Given that I don't have to pick off as many stems or woody ends before eating, it's a better consumer experience.
Since you talked about sorting machines earlier… I'm confused because other punnets I've bought lately from other brands appear to be sorted by size (all small-medium berries or all large ones), but the punnets from OzGroup appear to be not sorted by size (which is 100% fine with me… that's naturally how things grow on the plants, and therefore how I prefer to eat them. Not sure how berries sorted by size became a "thing", as they seem to be today.) Can you shed any light on the sorting practices there? Did they just get a windfall of crop and decide to package and get it out as quickly as possible, skipping that step?
HF St Ives were stacking heaps of trays this morning.
Tried some just now, not the crispest I've had, but pretty sweet.
We're going to try some different recipes with them, that we wouldn't normally do because it would normally cost much more for the quantity of blueberries.
Which recipes you planning to try? I need ideas. Made these muffins the other day https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/blueberry-muffins/1fa7b907-… , definitely need to add some extras as they would be very bland if you follow the recipe. I used two punnets instead of one, added almond flakes, vanilla essence and cinnamon.
I'm a fan of adding blueberries to homemade waffles and pancakes.
It can be challenging as I prefer to avoid egg and dairy, but I found a solution that is worth every cent, that became one of my favourite vegan-ish hacks 20 years ago: Krusteaz fruit pancake mixes imported from America (available on and off from USA Foods).
I used to use Krusteaz Apple Cinnamon pancake mix, which I believe was "accidentally vegan" though made on lines that also make non vegan mixes, and add blueberries, and …. divine. :-) Was discontinued a few years ago, so I now use Krusteaz Blueberry pancake mix, which is also accidentally vegan. And again, add my own blueberries (and strawberries, and raspberries… whatever I've got on hand). The "blueberries" in the Krusteaz mix are blue-coloured blueberry-like bits, not ACTUAL pieces of blueberries. I buy a half dozen boxes of Krusteaz at a time when I can find it in stock.
When adding blueberries to any baked/pastry sort of thing, think of it this way: The more blueberries you can stuff into your batter and have it still hold together, the healthier it is.
Also: peach-blueberry crumble is amazing, but it's not quite good peach season yet. Maybe someone else knows of a good crumble to make with fruits that are currently in season?
My wife baked this one this afternoon: https://www.recipetineats.com/blueberry-lemon-yoghurt-cake/ It was very nice, and good to know that the 3 punnets of blueberries it uses cost < $3 instead of twice, thrice or quadruple that.
Any luck from Broadway store?This is the nearest store to where I live!
Yes, see Normy's comment above. I bought one earlier today, there's still stock there, it's inside the store, to the left as you enter, i.e. on the opposite side of where the punnets of berries usually are, and it's $9.99 for a box of 12 punnets.
Thank you!
Penno is still restocking … ~70 trays left on Tue ~5pm
Great thanks OP, off to get a tray