Ben Parle: Extra Pickles The Order Of The Day!

Did you know that every time you order a Big Mac, you’re tucking into the produce of McDonald’s Australia’s sole pickles supplier? Tony and Gai Parle are long-time Hutcheon & Pearce customers and we think they’re doing an awesome job. Here we caught up with their son, Ben, to learn more about how his family got into this pickle!

For the past 30 years, the Parle family has been supplying pickles to McDonalds Australia. Back in the late 80s, this was growing gherkins for former supplier, Heinz, but then the opportunity arose for Tony to take on the whole contract.

“McDonald’s looked set to source their product from overseas and Dad was facing the loss of his business. He was given permission by the Heinz board of directors to approach McDonald’s about processing himself.

“The next thing, a few guys came from the US who were experienced in growing and pickling gherkins and Dad set up a factory based on their advice. From 1990, he was supplying the whole country and has been ever since.”

All the action happens at the family’s 1800 hectare property in Tabbita, 30kms west of Griffith.

“We grow the gherkins for McDonald’s in summer as well as wheat in the winter. We’ve got 500 hectares irrigated, and every year we use about 250 of the 500 to grow the pickles under centre pivot irrigators. We stagger the planting through summer, so our harvest goes from January to April.

“We pickle them in salt brine after they’re harvested, and then we process them for McDonald’s – slicing and packaging – at a factory built on the same site in 2005. It’s about 1800 tonnes each year, or enough for 2 million burgers a week.”

Ben has been in the family business for the past 12 years and in that time has seen it grow.

“Dad did a lot of research before going into gherkins. He’s tried a bit of everything over the years. We’ve grown turnips and carrots and English spinach and all the sort of vegetables you could imagine. Corn was a big one for a long time. Corn and beans. Our business is actually called Australian Frozen Foods because 15, 16 years ago corn was our biggest product. We always did the pickles, but they’re the one that’s stuck around, I guess.

“He’s tried a bit of everything, but I think the biggest factor is probably McDonald’s as the customer being really reliable. Dealing with other buyers can be quite fickle when they’re happy to go with the cheapest. But McDonald’s is different. Their priority is on Australian grown products and Australian farmers. That’s their business model worldwide, to try for the local product, the local suppliers. That just works with us.

“And in Australia, McDonald’s is constantly expanding. Every year they’re putting in 20 to 30 stores. So therefore their sales are going up, and our sales steadily go up as well.” 

Ben said people often don’t know much about growing gherkins, or the pickling process.

“People also don’t realise how intensive it is. They’re only a 60 day crop and in a really hot summer, they can come down to as quick as a 45 day crop from planting to harvest. When we do have those sorts of long heatwaves, it can be difficult to manage irrigation. We can’t afford to get behind with watering.

“Then the pickling takes about six weeks, from harvest to being ready to process. We’ve got a lot of automation. The way we’ve set it up is to be quite cost effective and not too reliant on labour. We employ 12 full-time staff and during harvest put on another 10 or so casual workers, and year-round the whole farming operation is run by basically one person, our farm manager Scott Amaro. Their family have been farmers for generations as well. He’s just a natural, and he loves it.”

Ben said ever since he can remember, his family has purchased green machines.

“My grandfather moved down here when he was 19 or 20 and bought a John Deere and started farming. I’m the third generation, and all we’ve ever driven is John Deere.

“We’ve got 11 tractors and two cotton pickers that we’ve modified into pickle harvesters and another that we’re modifying at the moment to pump our pickles out of their tanks where they ferment. We have one tractor with a front linkage, an 8320R, and we use a Simplicity front mount fertilizer bin on the front of that. And we use that for planting.

“Just yesterday, we just bought a John Deere header from Hutcheon & Pearce, a second hand one. Generally, we just call Robbo [Ian Robertson]. He’s generally the only person we buy gear off. Dad’s been dealing with Robbo for 25 years and will only deal with someone else if Robbo can’t help him out.”

When asked what he orders at McDonald’s, his answer is perhaps unsurprising.

“What’s the favourite thing? Definitely a Big Mac with extra pickles. My wife and I always want to support the ‘family’ business, so we get it a lot. Probably too much!”