Simfresh's farms at Gol Gol in New South Wales and Gin Gin in Queensland are major suppliers of citrus to the Coles supermarket chain, and also to the Australian export market.

The business decided to expand its growing capacity so it could produce fruit all year round but couldn't find the number of local workers it needed to meet increased requirements.

The company turned to the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) and Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) to help source the workers it needed.

Simfresh joined the SWP in September 2018 and recruited workers from Vanuatu straight away to help set up its new citrus farm in Gin Gin, Queensland.

According to operations manager Luke Cini, the SWP workers learned fast and made a big contribution to the business by preparing the farm for next season’s crop.

Another cohort of ni-Vanuatu seasonal workers were hired shortly after to pick the new season’s citrus crop in NSW. Mr Cini said the last harvest season saw “far and away the best picking results we have ever had” thanks to the addition of SWP workers.

A very positive experience: employer

Simfresh then joined the PLS so it could also source workers for low-skilled and semi-skilled roles including forklift drivers, machine operators and line leaders for packing lines.

By October 2019, the business had employed 7 ni-Vanuatu PLS staff in NSW, with plans to recruit more Pacific island workers in the future.

Mr Cini said the experience of bringing them to live and work in Australia has been very positive overall.

“One of the workers is actually running a complicated and very expensive machine completely on his own,” Mr Cini said.

“The efficiencies they bring to the business will really start to show in the next year or so, and the big difference between PLS workers and working holiday makers is that they can stay for longer.”