Costa family puts Victoria’s biggest tomato farm on the market
Costa family-backed agricultural turnaround specialist goFARM has put Victoria’s biggest field tomato growing operation on the market.
Winlaton Farms, which spans 4,855ha near Lake Boga in north-west Victoria, produces about 75,000 tonnes of field tomatoes a year and supplies them to food manufacturer Kagome for use in its pastes, chutneys, salsas and tinned cans.
goFARM is a joint venture between Costa Asset Management, the family office of Robert and Adrian Costa (younger brothers of the late Rich Lister Frank Costa) and founder Liam Lenaghan. It acquired Winlaton Farms in 2022 when it bought the 9014ha Lake Boga farming portfolio from Aware Super for $30 million.
Since then, goFARM has consolidated the portfolio by selling peripheral land and taking the business back to its core operation of growing tomatoes (barley, canola and fava beans are grown in winter).
“We’ve got our capital back [through land sales] and have focused on improving the farming systems and business at Winlaton to what they are now,” Mr Lenaghan said.
“There were 12 different enterprises being operated including cotton, sheep and cereal crops, none of which were going that well. We have specialised and simplified those to producing tomatoes over summer and have signed an attractive supply agreement with Kagome Australia.”
Price expectations are above $20 million for the tomato farms, while water, plant and equipment are also available for purchase, depending on “how the buyer wants to tackle it”.
Danny Thomas, Nathan Cleeland and Jaclyn Hope from LAWD are handling the sale of Winlaton Farms.
Blue chip farming properties continue to sell at strong prices despite lower commodity prices driving down yields and farmland values plateauing due to higher interest rates and input costs.
A 873ha mixed-farming property at Mount Walker West in south-east Queensland’s Scenic Rim region sold for $9.8 million at auction last week to a local family after being offered to the market by Charlie Mort, owner of Mort & Co. The largest feedlot manager in Australia, Mort & Co considered an IPO a few years ago.
Mount Walker West achieved the highest price out of over 100 properties offered for sale at the Ray White auction. Neil Mundy and Warren Ramsey from Ray White Ipswich marketed the farming block, which is set up for cultivation and grazing.
Four registered bidders competed for the property. Bidding started at $7 million and jumped quickly to $8.5 million where the auction paused. The winning bidder then increased their bid to $9.8 million and the property sold under auctioneer Phil Parker’s hammer.
Mr Ramsey said Mr Mort was happy with the result.
In another noteworthy deal, Glanmire Station, a 2237ha cattle finishing property at Abington in Queensland’s Bundaberg region has changed hands for $14.5 million after being offered by the family of the late Rich Lister Sperry Coventry. Mr Coventry, who appeared on the Financial Review (then the BRW) Rich List in the 1990s, was one of the country’s biggest individual producers of superfine wool boasting a portfolio of 17 properties spanning 25,000ha.
The family’s Armidale-based business – Lynoch – is run by Mr Coventry’s son Warren. Glanmire Station can carry about 900 cattle and is supplied with water from Gwydir River on its boundary and from Two Mile Creek, which transects its paddocks.
The sale of Glanmire Station was handled Andrew Starr from Ray White Rural who declined to comment.
In the Whitsunday region of Northern Queensland, the Cox family has sold its 31,474ha Gattonvale Holding for more than $70 million to another Queensland family. The property situated 32km from Collinsville was owned by the Cox family for 62 years. The sale through Shepherdson & Boyd agent Mike Barry included a herd of 4900 Santa Gertrudis cattle.
