CITRUS industry hall of fame inductee Robert Lochert attributes the recognition he has received to the hard working and loyal staff at his Riverland West company, Lochert Bros, based in Ramco. 

Mr Lochert was installed into Citrus Australia’s Hall of Fame in April this year during an industry forum at Maroochydore, on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

The 80-year-old managing director and owner of Lochert Bros was humbled to receive the accolade and said the award belonged to his team.

We have been in business, packing oranges, since 1963 and over the years we have had some long-term and loyal employees,” Mr Lochert said. 

“To have a successful company you need to have good employees.”

The citrus packer and transport business officially became a company in 1963, with Mr Lochert and his brother John running the business.

This followed their father Emil handing over the family business to his three sons in 1961, when John turned 21, Robert was 19, and their youngest brother Russell was still at school.

“He said to us, ‘That is all I have to give to you, if you make a go of it, good luck, if you fail there is nothing I can do about it’,” Mr Lochert said.

“He never interfered, although he was a bit interested at times in what was going on.”

Mr Lochert’s father also requested his sons buy the Virgo Road property from him for £4000 and give the money to their three sisters, which they did.

Emil Lochert’s first venture in horticulture and transport was in the 1930s when he grew tomatoes and cucumbers in glasshouses at the present site.

Mr Lochert said his father would take his produce in his Ford Model T to the Waikerie railway station and send it to clients in towns along the railway line to Tailem Bend.

“Greengrocers were buying them from him,” he said.

Mr Lochert said they then asked Emil if he could also start supplying oranges from the area.

He said during a railway strike in the late 1940s his father had to hire some carriers to transport citrus from the district to other parts of the state.

In 1950, Emil purchased his first truck, an eight-tonne S Model Commer.

Mr Lochert said when Lochert Bros first started, it employed five people. It now has 95 staff.

This includes employees at its express freight division, Sprint Freight and Logistics, which operates out of Adelaide and distributes overnight all over South Australia and into Victoria.

Lochert Bros has weathered the difficult times experienced by the citrus industry and continues to strive to ensure growers receive the best returns possible for their fruit.

The family established Crusta Fruit Juices in 1971, with Murray View Irrigation as a 50 per cent shareholder.

In 1993, Lochert Bros became the sole owner of the juice-processing enterprise, after purchasing the shares owned by their business partner in the venture.

In 2001, Crusta was the second largest fresh fruit juice brand in Australia.

In 2004, Locherts decided to sell their juice processing company to Coca-Cola Amatil. It was a decision Mr Lochert regrets.

“After they took it over, it just went backwards, eventually they closed it down,” he said.

Lochert Bros general manager Peter Kuchel said right from that first year Coca-Cola Amatil did not purchase the estimated volume of fruit expected of it.

“We had a three-year arrangement to make sure that they had enough fruit, but they couldn’t take it all,” he said.

Each year the demand dropped, so we had to find somewhere else for our growers’ fruit.”

Mr Kuchel said Lochert Bros expanded its packing operations to ensure the region’s oranges still had a market.

The company bought back its juice factory in 2018, but was unable to buy back the Crusta brand name or Crusta Fruit Juices Company. 

It now supplies valencia juice to Renmark-based beverage company Charlie’s Drinks.

This year, Riverland growers are facing their lowest prices for citrus in five years. Mr Lochert said the small size of navel oranges this season was causing these low returns.

Mr Kuchel said growers were receiving $300 to $500 a tonne for their fruit compared to $500 to $900 in 2018.

He said transport costs were also causing the drop in prices for citrus.

“The costs of shipping has gone up astronomically,” Mr Kuchel said. 

Raw materials are going up and freight is a horrendous expense, especially with the fuel levy due to go up again across Australia.”

Mr Kuchel said the Covid-19 lockdowns were a profitable time for the company and its growers, as more consumers bought oranges from supermarkets in Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia.

But he said the easing of restrictions meant more people were choosing to buy their fruit from other outlets, such as farmers’ markets.

Mr Lochert said the Australian citrus industry was also suffering from a downturn in exports to China. He said this was due to Covid-19 lockdowns and a souring of the relationship between Australia and China.

But he said Lochert Bros still had strong ties with Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan where Riverland citrus remains in high demand.