Mr McGee is the face of Birds Eye garden peas and said that the dollar’s 20 to 25 per cent fall against the US dollar during the past 12 months was a great benefit to producers and the processors they supplied.

‘‘Every fall in the Aussie dollar reduces the competitive advantage of our main competitor, New Zealand, because they can’t export to us as effectively,’’ he said.

‘‘It does put up the cost of some of our imported inputs, but that’s a smaller thing on the whole.

‘‘The lower dollar isn’t just good for Simplot and its Tasmanian pea suppliers, but all manner of exports like pyrethrum, poppies, vegetable seeds and meat.

‘‘After a fair few years of a high dollar, it’s giving the export side of things a big kick along — markets are very price sensitive at the consumer end.

‘‘Our production costs are a lot higher in Australia than our competitors, so the lower dollar equalises the scale a bit.

‘‘It evens up the competition for what’s coming in to compete with us domestically and has the added benefit of making us more competitive on the export side.

Mr McGee said margins right through the supply chain were so small, any drop in the exchange rate made a huge difference.

Mr McGee said  he’d planted 50 hectares of peas this year and expected to start harvesting in a couple of weeks.

Devonport’s Simplot plant also packs broccoli, beans, carrots, onions and cauliflowers.