HPA’s Bushy Park site reduces hop production

Australia’s largest commercial hops grower Hop Products Australia (HPA) has announced it will reduce next year’s production by one-third due to decreased market and consumer demand.

As reported by The Tasmanian Country earlier this year, HPA farm manager Tom Parry said the organisation was running on slightly less acreage due to reduced market and consumer demand. 

He has now confirmed that next year production will be reduced further, with the facility growing on two-thirds of its regular farm acreage.

“We’ve come off a period that was booming,” Mr Parry said.

“The past decade we almost couldn’t keep up with the demand, whereas the last 12 months, with interest rates being high, the demand has plateaued.”

“There’s a bit of a glut in the market at the moment, people aren’t drinking as much beer as in the past.”

“We just don’t want to flood the market,” he said.

The 262ha Bushy Park site typically employs 150 people during harvesting season, and Mr Parry stated that the number of employees for next harvest will remain the same, however harvest may be a day or two shorter.

Across their three farms, HPA grow 90 per cent of Australia’s hops and roughly 2 per cent of hops grown around the world.

They have been growing hops at the facility for more than 150 years.

Mr Parry said he believes the decreased consumer demand is due to changed beer-drinking habits and individuals spending less time going out since Covid.

In 2022, HPA built a new production facility in Victoria replicating what is already at bushy park and allowing them to double their processing capacity. 

“We went through a period of very rapid growth at that time, so for the next year or two we will be in more of a consolidation phase, making sure we are nailing our processes and giving everybody good hops.” Mr Parry said.