Sweet and sustainable: Costa’s newest blueberry venture welcomed to Laos

The Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos is an important agricultural region, known primarily for coffee production. Australia’s Costa Group believes the local climate and location also make it an ideal site for blueberries. In March 2025, the company launched the first 17-hectare stage of its blueberry farm near Paksong.

Costa has spent nearly 3 decades developing blueberry genetics, explains CEO Marc Werner. Their varieties grow from temperate to tropical climates. Costa’s own farms extend from Tasmania to Far North Queensland, Morocco and China. That experience gave the company the confidence to identify Laos as a region where their varieties could grow successfully.

Costa is seeing increased demand for blueberries in all markets including China and Southeast Asia. Growing in Laos will lengthen the season and help supply the Asian market, while offering skills and employment benefits for the local community.

Sharing strategies for climate resilience

Like all berry growers, Costa is building climate resilience into its growing operations.

Farming across a range of latitudes helps the company ensure year-round supply. It also helps spread risk to crops from unpredictable and extreme weather events.

Berries on the Laos farm will be grown under cover in polytunnels, using a substrate growing medium. Not only does this method minimise crop loss from weather events, Costa finds it provides an earlier and increased yield. It also enables more water and nutrients to be applied more precisely and efficiently.

Costa has invested heavily in developing its growing systems and believes they are currently the most sustainable way to grow berries, says Werner.

Local farmers can also use the same techniques to produce food more efficiently and increase their resilience to climate change.

The official opening of Costa’s blueberry farm in Laos.

Local employment and skills development opportunities

The project currently employs a local workforce of 65. That number is expected to grow as the operation expands to its planned production area of 200 hectares by 2028.

Costa also plans to invest in education and skills development for local workers. Berry growing is a labour-intensive activity. It offers career opportunities including horticultural specialists, quality assurance supervisors and managers. It is common for Costa team members to start as pickers or on-farm workers and move into those specialist roles, says Werner.

‘That’s one of the undersold benefits of the fresh produce industry,’ he says. ‘It can create opportunities for year-round local work for rural communities. Otherwise, people might need to leave or travel long distances to work.’

Introducing transport logistics to Asian markets

Blueberries are more robust than other berry fruits. However, they still require careful transport and logistics to ship to market.

Growing in Laos helps reduce the distance to Asian markets. Because the region has no existing infrastructure for packing and shipping berries, Costa had to establish an effective supply chain.

‘That infrastructure will also be useful for other community activities,’ adds Werner.

Advancing sustainable agricultural practices

The blueberry farm has been years in development.

Agriculture is an important industry for Laos, but it had no experience of growing blueberries. Local authorities needed to be confident of the benefits to the community before approving the investment.

Building that trust takes time and can be especially challenging in an unfamiliar political system and structure.

‘This farm stands as a testament to our shared commitment to advancing sustainable agricultural practices and fostering economic prosperity in Laos,’ says H.E. Megan Jones, the Australian Ambassador to Lao PDR.

‘We cannot speak highly enough of the support we’ve had at every turn from the Australian authorities, including Austrade and the Australian Embassy,’ says Werner.

‘We take that trust seriously, and we are very proud to be able to introduce a nutritious and healthy crop into Laos that can also bring income and skills into a rural community,’ he adds.