Maarten joined Murray River Organics in January 2016. He heads up the European office of Murray River Organics, which we established in The Netherlands early 2016.

Maarten has over 20 years of experience in Senior Management roles in the corporate world and has lived and worked in several countries including Australia, which is where he met Erling with whom he worked with very closely for many years. Maarten decided to step out of the corporate world in 2013 and worked as an independent Project Manager for some time before joining the Murray River Organics team and taking the responsibility to build our presence in Europe.

Maarten is married to Monique and has 2 kids (Max, 15 and Anne, 17). He loves sailing, vintage cars, actively trades antique clocks and goes to the gym regularly to stay fit.

Polenta Porridge with Apple, Cinnamon, Sultanas and Walnuts

Ingredients

1 cup (250ml) low fat dairy, soy or other milk of choice

1 cup (250ml) water

1 medium apple, diced (don’t peel)

¼ cup Gobble® Sultanas

¼ cup maple syrup or honey

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

½ cup cornmeal

2 tablespoons walnuts

Instructions

Place the milk, water, apple, sultanas, maple syrup, ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon and salt in a medium saucepan (that has a lid) and bring to the boil over medium heat.

Add the polenta to the pot in a thin stream, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon so that it doesn't go lumpy.

Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer with a lid on, stirring every few minutes, for 10-15 minutes or until the polenta is cooked.

Pour into 3 serving bowls and sprinkle with extra cinnamon and walnuts before serving.

We continue to enjoy favourable conditions of high temperatures, low humidity, good wind and virtually no rain in the Sunraysia region where our farming activities are located. As a result of these conditions our fruit is dried nicely evenly and consistently, with no apparent diseases. So far we couldn’t ask for a better year.

TM and our other varieties to be harvested through April. This also means we have delivered the first shipments of our new season fruit to our customers. We have in recent times enjoyed meeting with both existing as well as potentially new customers in our travels to Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and California. The high quality of our products, the fact that we are fully integrated and hence have full control over production methodology and can provide high degree of traceability, coupled with our ability to provide year-round secure and stable supply at competitive non-fluctuating prices – continues to gain the recognition and appreciation by customers globally. We were proudly, humbly and gracefully recognised for our efforts when we received the LOHAS award in Hong Kong in March, for our contribution towards improving the lifestyle of health and sustainability of people living in Hong Kong and China.

We remain well progressed in our allocation of this year’s production to our various customers around the world. We encourage those who have not yet been in contact to discuss their requirements for 2016 and beyond to do so soonest to ensure we have sufficient product available to meet expectations.

Assessing the current status in the other key growing regions of dried vine fruit, there are some significant issues playing out which we believe are worthy of mention:

Significant rainfalls have been experienced in the dried vine fruit regions of Argentina and according to our sources has had quite severe negative impact to the quality and size of crop. In particular the organic crop has been impacted.Anecdotally we understand up towards 20% of the Chilean crop may have sustained damages due to inclement weather.Significant rainfalls in South Africa have inflicted damage to the crop from there and we have heard that production could be reduced by up to as much as 40% when compared to last year. Similarly to Argentina, we understand that especially the organic crop will be materially reduced.In Turkey we understand that the key growing regions (around Manisa) have experienced very low temperatures which is likely to cause an increase in the production cost and a lower production volume. Similar situations have played out the last couple of years and the 2015 crop was reduced by more than 1/3 when compared to the 2014 crop. On top of that it has been reported that the tightening regulatory environment for one of the key markets for dried vine fruit, more precisely the EU where proposed new pesticide tolerance levels for chlorpyrifos of 0.01ppm (from current 0.5ppm), may cause some difficulties for Turkish production to comply with.

It is predicted that temperatures in California will be warmer than normal or average this spring. This in turn means it is likely that the snow-packs that have finally re-appeared will be melting too early and not have the desired impact to assist the growers. The higher temperatures have resulted in the vines being almost a fortnight earlier than what would be the norm at this time of year. The early warm weather coupled with the early-season rain has led to a much increased risk of fungal disease, including phomopsis, leaf spot and of course powdery mildew.

The reduction in productive capacity from the pulling out of vineyards that have been observed over the last few years appears to continue and has seen the reported raisin grape bearing capacity reduced to 190,000 acres as at July 2015, according to the Agricultural Statistics Board NASS, USDA. Our local contacts in the area believe the actual acreage for the 2016 crop is in fact now less than 180,000. A significant reduction from the plantings ten years ago where there was 234,000 acres under vine for raisin production. Again, the most significant impact appears to have hit the organic production as the reduction in productive capacity for organic raisins is some x3 that of conventional just since 2010.

Meantime, the global demand for high quality, organic food with authentic trust-worthy certifications and high levels of traceability continue to grow strongly. The integration of the large vineyard which we acquired in December has gone well and as planned. We will continue to expand our productive capacity from this and our other vineyards to be able to meet our customers’ growing demands. Furthermore, with our new office in Holland now established it enables us to improve our responsiveness and level of service we provide to our customers. We are working on establishing offices with similar functions in the US and in Asia.

We will this year produce a significant volume of Australian conventional dried vine fruit. Similar to our own organic products the conventional fruit is of superb quality and meets the highest levels of food safety regulations. All our fruit is all well within the new proposed EU pesticide tolerance levels. Being able to service our customers with both organic and conventional products is something we believe is an important addition to our offering.

Being a B Certified corporation, we proudly and passionately believe in setting and meeting the highest standards when it comes to Social and Environmental performance, Public Transparency and Legal Accountability. We are pleased to advise that we have completed the installation of solar panels at our processing facility and at our freezing facility, and we will soon commence the install at our main storage facility.

Recent upgrades to our processing facility has resulted in higher productivity and even higher product quality. With more new best-in-class processing equipment being installed we will further increase our productive capacity of high specification products in the near future. Our commitment to continuously assess what we do and seek to improve on it is part of our DNA. It is what we do to ensure that we are able to meet our supply commitments and exceed our customers’ expectations in being their most reliable and sustainable source of healthy food for current and future generations.

Hot dry weather persisting since early in January coupled with endless waves of work in the farms and ongoing testing and trying new and bets in class dried vine fruit agronomy, has led to an excellent crop that is either being harvested now, or through April. With the addition of our Colignan property for this growing season our fleet of 2 Twin Row Harvesters and 2 Single Row Harvesters are working harder than any of the footballers who have just kicked off the 2016 AFL season.

AGRONOMY

Leading up to harvest there has been little going on, the watering program is reduced to aid in drying and the nutrition program also takes a break as we trigger the vines response to accumulate sugars into the fruit.

As the fruit comes off the vine we follow up with the post-harvest water and nutrition plans across these patches. This part of the program is targeted at the secondary root flush going into the Autumn weather conditions and is designed to assist the vines in accumulating carbohydrates in the vine wood prior to the vines dormancy in winter. This accumulation phase is important as this is the energy store that the vine calls upon for positive and healthy bud burst in Spring.

FARM OPERATIONS

The teams located across our vineyards are working hard to maximise the level of efficiencies in relation to our harvest conditions. At the moment they are juggling the mechanical harvesting of bulk fruit product, managing the cluster picking teams, transportation between facilities and monitoring the quality of fruit receivals at the warehouse.

Our new B-Double truck has been a fantastic addition, as it improves the timely management of bin deliveries to farms, fruit pick-ups and deliveries to our cool chain and factory.

Our Sun Muscat raisins are 100% Australian Grown to Australian Organic standards.

The Sun Muscat Raisin is a variety that is unique to Australia and are not grown in any other dried fruit region in the world.

This is a seedless grape variety with medium to large berries with a honey sweet Muscat flavour.

Our Sun Muscat Raisins are available in the Gobble® 100g Snack Pack and 6x35g Snack Box range or in a 12.5kg Bulk Carton.

Peter has been working for Murray River Organics for 4 ½ years as the Farm Manager on our Yatpool property, recently he has moved across to our production facility as the Production Manager due to his previous experience in this role with other companies.

Peter has been involved in the dried fruit industry in the Sunraysia region all of his life, this began with casual work for the Nemtsas family on the Alkira property. From these humble beginnings, with the experience that he had earned, he purchased his own properties that he managed for 12 years.

Given the long history with the Nemtsas family and the business the Jamie and Erling were looking to build, Peter was excited to work with the Murray River Organics team to become a major dried fruit producer.

Chewy Sultana ANZAC Biscuits

Ingredients

1 1⁄4 Cups of quick cooking oats

1 Cup of plain flour (sieved)

1 Cup of caster sugar

1⁄2 Cup of desiccated coconut

160g butter

4 Tablespoons of golden syrup

1 Teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

2 Tablespoons boiling water

1⁄2 Cup of sultanas

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and grease a large baking tray.

Mix the oats, coconut, sugar, sultanas and flour together in a large mixing bowl.

Heat the butter and golden syrup on a medium heat until butter has melted, reduce heat slightly.

Combine the bicarbonate of soda with the boiling water and then add to the butter/syrup mix. Stir through for a few seconds so it combines and froths. Remove from the heat and pour over the flour mixture.

Stir through, then use your hands to roll small amount of mixture into balls.

Use the heat from your hand to press the mixture together and flatten slightly before placing on the baking tray.

Repeat for the remaining mixture.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the baking tray.

Dried Vine Fruits rank among the top antioxidant foods, according to tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Antioxidants are important because they protect cells and their components from oxidative damage – a little like “rust prevention” for the body. Early findings suggest that eating plenty of fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants, such as raisins and spinach, may help slow the processes associated with aging in both body and brain and may help protect cell components from changes that lead to diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. Antioxidants protect cholesterol and other fats in the blood from oxidizing. This is critical because oxidized fats in the bloodstream are much more likely to be deposited on the artery wall or form clots which may lead to heart attack or stroke.

Raisins are among the top contenders for convenient, accessible, affordable, all-season antioxidant foods

We recently read an article titled "Pesticides found in so called "organic" food in Hong Kong" on organic-market.info.

We invite you to have a read on this link. We believe it raises some valid points. Firstly, Hong Kong does not have any regulations of its own in relation to what "organic" is, just because a product claims to be organic doesn't mean it is. The regulations in place are very basic and therefore allow for a level of manipulation by the producers of such products.

Secondly the article raises the very valid point that each country or region requires a regulating body to ensure the standards are adhered to at all times, in relation to not only the primary production of these goods, but also any processing.

The article highlights that some 37% of the samples of organic vegetables sold in Hong Kong had excessive pesticide residues, which places a spotlight on the requirement for Hong Kong to put in place an organic certification body to ensure the relevance of organic labeling in the country.

Being an organic producer, certified at the highest standard, is at the core of the Murray River Organics business. We employ a great deal of time and resources to ensure that appropriate management, testing and review of practices at all times to ensure that we can meet and exceed these ever changing standards globally.

A recent article in the Australian Financial Review caught our attention, titled "Why it's worth paying more for organic food". The article can be viewed in full here.

The article highlights the continually growing trend in the Australian market towards foods, and products that are Certified Organic. The author notes that she thinks this is about the only area of "normal" life that she can control on an ongoing basis.

She poses the question: Why pay more for organic products?

"It costs more to grow food without cutting corners, without cheating Mother Nature..."

The risk to growing organic dried vine fruit is pests and disease at the vineyard, including mildew. Conventional farming allows the spraying of chemicals to control this disease which can wreak havoc and spread quickly throughout a vineyard. Being organic we do not apply such practices or chemicals. We have developed a proprietary application which we spray as a preventative management system. We have had great success with this system. The cost comes in that we require 2 or 3 passes through a vineyard, paying multiple labourers the standard wage compared to the conventional spray which can cost as little as cents per acre, requiring a single staff member and a tractor.

"... levels relate to individual pesticides and herbicides and cocktail effects ... aren't taken into account"

Effects of consuming these "cocktails" are not yet fully known. What of course is known is that allergies and asthma are on the rise, as are incidents of cancers. The article references research which considers the levels of pesticides (organophosphates) prior to and post consuming a mainly organic diet (80% organic) resulting in a 90% reduction (based on urine samples) in a single week. Other results demonstrated health benefits in individuals such as reduced levels of depression, anxiety and stress.

It is great to see that the consumption of organic produce is gaining increased attention. It validates what we at Murray River Organics are so passionate about - being a sustainable source of healthy food for current and future generations.