It surprises many people to learn that citrus has been grown on family farms around Gayndah since 1892. In fact, it continued to be grown this way right up until 1969 when a number of local growers began looking into the benefits of forming a co-operative - a decision that ultimately led to the birth of Gayndah Packers. Here's the story of how we came to be what we are today:

The Birth of Gayndah Packers Citrus - and mandarins in particular - have been a mainstay of Gayndah's economy for more than a century. This is because land along the Burnett River (which flows right through the heart of town) produces some of the finest flavoured mandarins in the world. The majority of growers in the district have orchards of between 10 and 30 hectares. And right up until the 1960s they tended to run these as family ventures, doing all the growing, packing and marketing themselves. In 1969, though, new developments in processing and marketing convinced many growers that creating a co-operative packing shed was the only way that many could stay in business. The Gayndah Fruitgrowers Association began to discuss the idea and they commissioned a feasibility study with the help of Australian Paper Manufacturers' engineers. In March 1971, a meeting of growers accepted the rules of a proposed co-operative and 19 of them subscribed to the project. Queensland Treasury guaranteed a loan of $200,000 from the Commonwealth Development Bank and the growers subscribed a further $60,000 - and Gayndah Packers was born.   The Early Years A suitable site for the new packing shed was purchased in North Gayndah in 1972 (the same site we still occupy today - see photo at right) and A.P.M.'s Packaging Division designed our initial packaging machinery. Tenders for the building and machinery were then called in late 1972 and Gayndah Packers began operating in the 1973 season, processing 3,778 tonnes of citrus for shareholders. Over the next few years the Co-Op continued to expand both its facilities and its tonnages. We added two cold rooms in 1974 and a fumigation room in 1976. In 1977, we added a railway siding. And in 1978, a shed extension. By 1979, throughput had increased by 33% to 5,042 tonnes with a gross value of over $2 million. That year we also ran a competition to select a name for the co-operative, and it was won by Mr David McIntyre with his suggestion that we call ourselves Gaypak, which is now registered as the Company brand for first grade fruit. By 1980, all our fruit was pooled and sold under two brand names: Gaypak and Gaiety. A small proportion of fruit was sold locally, but most of it was sent to Sydney and Melbourne. That same year we built a further shed extension, and the following year (1981) we introduced a second packaging line as well.   Marketing As production increased over Gayndah Packers first seven years of operation, marketing emerged as the most important issue we faced - and a single agent or tight panel system was adopted in each Capital City market. Most of the agents who joined us at that time still continue to be our principal agents today, offering buyers a depth of knowledge about Gaypak mandarins and citrus no-one else can match - and all of them are listed on our Agents page.   Quality Control Another issue we faced as we grew was that most of our shareholders gradually increased their plantings over time, but initially the quality of our fruit varied because of the different ages of the trees. Because of this, we decided to implement a Quality Assurance program. Gayndah Packers is now accredited to the GlobalGAP and HACCP standard and we now rely on our QA protocols for monitoring the processes that set fruit quality standards, helping us to produce reliable and uniformly high quality mandarins from one year to the next.   Equipment Gayndah Packers has always invested heavily in modern machinery and we continue to do so. Much of our equipment is the very latest in packaging technology, and our processing lines are unique, making use of a number of innovations, such as automated carton filling that we developed ourselves. In 1985 we also introduced a computerised reporting system which allows our growers to track exactly how their fruit is performing quality wise in the marketplace, We've continued to update and refine this revolutionary system ever since. We installed a major upgrade to all our systems in 1997. And in 2001 we invested another $1 million to build 3 new cold rooms capable of holding 6 container loads of fruit in cold storage at any time, along with another extension to our packing shed and new loading bays to meet the needs of our growing export markets.