Jackfruit: new grower, location, and startup expectations

[Randomdan]

Hi all,

New to the forums so thank you in advance for any insight you can provide. My wife and I love Jackfruit, and we really fell in love with it during our travels in Southeast Asia.

Every time I go to the grocery store, it kills me to never see it available, see astronomical prices, or just not find any type of variety.

Recently I keep finding myself wanting to explore a small (test) jackfruit growing operation.  Since jackfruit cannot survive frost, and needs moisture, I effectively am limited to south Florida, parts of Southern California, Mexico, the Caribbean, and further south. I’m located in the north east USA and my hopes are to be able to set up a hands off operation, as jackfruit take a few years to produce.

I’ve never grown jackfruit (or really anything else for the most part). I’m hoping this forum can enlighten me in a few things including:

-where are some potential places I could do this? (I’ve explored land prices for small plots (1-5 acres) in Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and south Florida
-what are the things I need to take into account as  I’m starting to explore a farm like this (I.e what equipment if any needs to be purchased, could I find a part time farmer to tend to the crops as I will not be on site, regulations I need to be aware of, rules about owning international farmland, etc)
-how much should I expect a startup of this nature to cost (equipment cost, labor, materials, etc)
-what should my timeline of expectations be? (Expect fruit in 5 years, etc)
-how could a farm of this nature be automated (if at all)?
-anything else that I need to know before pursuing this?

Thank you in advance for taking the time to review this and respond! Hope to learn a thing or two, and if it makes sense finally pull the trigger on this.

Cheers!
RD

[pineislander]

Where would you intend to market the fruit, locally offshore or in the USA? If you intend to make money i'd suggest that needs to be worked out first.

[Randomdan]

Where would you intend to market the fruit, locally offshore or in the USA? If you intend to make money i'd suggest that needs to be worked out first.

I’d ideally start with personal consumption, or light distribution in the USA, as I test the waters for this being a viable, sustainable business.

[PurpleAlligator]

I doubt you could compete with Mexican jackfruit prices. If there was wholesale demand in the USA there would already be fields popping up.

Asia exports the processed (canned) jackfruit we consume in the USA.

I’ve talked to people from the jackfruit company who sell packaged barbecue jackfruit in stores and they source from Thailand.

I suspect the low price from other countries are a barrier to commercial fields here.

[NateTheGreat]

It sounds like you want to start a jackfruit farm cause of lack of distribution in your area. I'd recommend just finding a supplier, maybe someone on the forum from Florida. I'm in northern California and I can buy it pretty cheap here, I think about $0.60/lb, so you may be able to find it cheaper there if you know where to look. Do you have a Ranch 99 near you? I know part of the fun is growing it, but you could always grow cherries or something that grows well where you are.

[Finca La Isla]

Jakfruit is not an expensive thing to grow and it comes into production fairly quickly, especially grown from seed!
Outside the US you’d want a country friendly to outsiders and where you can get due process in the legal system. For me this would tend to rule out one of my favorite countries to visit, Mexico.
Ideally you’d want a piece of land with a good growing situation that is also a good investment, probably a place with ex pats there who could be local sources for information and recommendations.  It’s a big deal really.
Peter

[roblack]

South Florida (Homestead or the Redlands) makes the most sense. Jakfruit grows well down here, and no international issues to deal with. Shipping should be the least problematic from FL.

You could hire a landscaping company to tend to your trees.

[kc_moses]

There is a 1.23 Acre land with house on it not far from my house. I was going to buy it to do larger scale backyard gardening but it didn't work out since financially it's too much for me to handle by myself. If you're interested, just PM me and I can give you the address to the property. It's in Lake Worth and there is no HOA.

One of the thing you have to consider is when the hurricane come, there is a potential that all your Jackfruit trees will get damage so you may have to start over every few years or so. Look up "Truly Tropical", they turn their backyard mango hobby into something quite big.

[nullzero]

If for personal consumption mainly. Better idea to buy around acre lot in South florida. Get a nice selection of different types of jack fruit plants, plant them on 15ft spacing. Arrange some landscape company to water once a month, mulch, and remove weeds.

[Randomdan]

Thank you for all the advice! South Florida definitely seems to make the most sense. Definitely do have distribution problems in my area, as really the only places to get jackfruit are in the Asian or Indian markets. I'll look into some plots of land that could serve as a place to plant them and take care of them from afar. Thank you everyone for your input!

[dwfl]

If/when you go ahead, choose varieties that both produce well and taste good with low latex. That will give you quality fruit over the imported barely compost worthy fruit.

[Coach62]

This place is expensive, but pretty good. Would be a helluva lot cheaper than what you’re proposing. https://miamifruit.org

Sign up for their email newsletter and they’ll let you know when they have jackfruit in. Much of their stuff is grown locally.

[kc_moses]

This place is expensive, but pretty good. Would be a helluva lot cheaper than what you’re proposing. https://miamifruit.org

Sign up for their email newsletter and they’ll let you know when they have jackfruit in. Much of their stuff is grown locally.

Can't help but notice miamifruit.org has 2 Musang King Durian for $224..... Jesus Christ!

[MiamiFruit]

Hey! This is Rane here, from miamifruit.org 🌈

I can’t recommend growing jackfruit for anything but personal use, if growing here in the USA.
With our land costs we can never compete with México prices. Also, even if growing in Mexico there are much more profitable crops ready for export.

What we’ve been doing here is working with local farmers to grow high profit crops specifically for our retail customers. We can contract farms, guarantee high purchase prices, and help provide setup and plant material to get started. If anyone is growing in the USA and interested, feel free to send me an email or call me at my cell - 7408378489

PS. I wish our prices were lower, but part of what we do is pay farmers good wages and that makes the retail cost high. For Musang King Durian we are paying $15/lb. when you add overnight shipping and the cost of the cooler, we’re not making much on those.

Miamifruit.org

[kc_moses]

PS. I wish our prices were lower, but part of what we do is pay farmers good wages and that makes the retail cost high. For Musang King Durian we are paying $15/lb. when you add overnight shipping and the cost of the cooler, we’re not making much on those.

I think your Musang King import is not sustainable. Here is what I found in FoodTown, about $15/lb without the shell. If you're paying $/15 with the shell, you're already loosing advantage:

[Coach62]

As I said, they aren’t cheap but their quality is good. I hope to sell to them in a few years as my trees mature.

They do offer a discount if you subscribe to automatic delivery

They buy local when they can, I’d MUCH rather buy local than imported!

Their monthly sampler boxes are fun to get, you never know what you’re gonna get. My one complaint is you might get 3 different types of bananas, but they’re not labeled, so if you really like one of them, you have to email them to find out which type.

Also, if you’re in the area they have a fruit stand at the fruit park every week. It’s easy to drop $100 there, but where else are you going to find that kind of variety?  And, the girls are pretty darned cute! 😉

[pineislander]

My one complaint is you might get 3 different types of bananas, but they’re not labeled, so if you really like one of them, you have to email them to find out which type.

That would be very easy to correct with a magic marker.

[Coach62]

My one complaint is you might get 3 different types of bananas, but they’re not labeled, so if you really like one of them, you have to email them to find out which type.

That would be very easy to correct with a magic marker.

Or a small slip of paper with check boxes. I suggested it, it was rejected.

Like I said, you can email them and they’ll reply. Their Key West Mameys are unreal. I meant to say they suck, please let me dispose of them all.