One of Australia's largest growers of capsicums, tomatoes and zucchinis has chosen a fleet of Toyota forklifts for its material handling needs.

Barbera Farms has a five-year agreement to rent 15 Toyota 8-Series forklift trucks, in addition to its own fleet of 11 forklifts and four tractor forklifts.

All 15 forklifts are Toyota model 8FG15 machines, with a basic capacity of 1.5-tonne at 500mm load centre, a three-metre two-stage mast and a side shift.

 Barbera Farms general manager, logistics, Jamie Geaney says the company chose the forklifts from Toyota Material Handling on the basis of product range, performance and reliability.

"We've used other brands and found the Toyota 8FG15 forklifts are good machines," he says. "They're competitive on rental price and they're just so reliable.

"We're switching to Toyota commercial vehicles for the same reason," he adds.

Jamie Geaney says Barbera Farms grows produce at Bundaberg, Bowen and Childers, and packs produce from other growers in Bowen and Bundaberg.

"In busy times we dispatch up to 300 pallets of produce per day out of Bundaberg," he explains.

Barbera Farms, founded by Guy Barbera, has been growing produce in the Bundaberg area for more than 45 years.

Toyota Material Handling's Central Queensland area manager (sales and rental) Steve Anderson said Barbera Farms started with two rental forklifts as a trial in November 2007.

"The company added another seven units in February and a further six in June," he says.

Toyota's -8FG15 forklift is part of Toyota's leading edge 8-Series range of forklifts. Safety features of the Toyota 8-Series forklift range include Toyota's exclusive System of Active Stability (SAS) and Operator Presence Sensing (OPS) as standard features.