Please accept this update to our growers and stakeholders up to Week 44.
The season is closing out and is in the final weeks. The grower entities team is in the process of completing and sending out our updated financial forecasts to you. In the case of SunGold and Hayward conventional, the forecasts are lower than we had previously indicated in your individual forecasts due to lower returns by Zespri from the market. In the case of Hayward organic, the returns are higher. These will be sent to you in the next week and covered off in the upcoming after 5 sessions in the first week of December.
In spite of a late maturity, lower dry matter fruit, a rain interrupted harvest, dumping 18.7 million kilos of fruit, and contending with difficult China market access conditions; the post-harvest sector has delivered very low fruit loss.
The focus is all on Hayward conventional and there is still some risk in the forecast returns. Overall the Industry produced some 93.021m trays of fruit up from the 84.081m in the previous year. Zespri determined it was more than could be economically sold and 5.208m trays were crop managed [dumped] leaving 87.813m trays in inventory compared to 83.283m last year. 2016 delivered a late maturity and late start to the selling season. It has also delivered low fruit loss and a combination of onshore and offshore fruit loss is expected to deliver 83.170m trays for sale compared to 77.966m in the previous year.
While the Zespri team have made gains in the last few weeks, the Industry has 15.787m trays of Hayward conventional still to sell [which is 7m trays more than the same time last year] and total sales to date are 192,000 trays behind the same time as last year and are selling at just under 3.1m trays per week.Zespri are making all efforts to sell the last of the fruit and the next few weeks remain critical to the close out of the season.
And to the numbers at midnight Sunday end of week 44 [06/11/2016]
Avocados well underway in a strong market
190,000 trays of avocados have been harvested packed and dispatched to market in the current season and are running at 7 export containers per week with 2 to Japan and 5 to Australia. The early season was complicated by wet weather, fragile fruit and a softer market. A spell of wet weather has allowed the harvest and market to reset itself. Fruit maturity is better, quality has improved, and the market strengthened to between AUD$30 and AUD$40 per tray in our key Australian market – and this will provide a good return to growers should the market hold.
The New Zealand avocado marketers have worked together to ensure that a high quality product is presented to the market through a reliable supply line while maintaining our individual promotional programs, brands and key customer and market relationships. All things being equal, as an industry, we will deliver our growers another season of strong returns, the fourth in a row.
Calling all pollen flowers
Thank you to those Seeka growers who have made your orchards available for male flower picking. Our pollen mill is up and running having had a significant make over with new mills and elevators. Bud break is patchy and in some orchards the males are not floral. Our growers will need all the pollen we can mill. We pay our growers for the male flowers we harvest, and we sell the pollen to our growers at a significant discount to market.
If you haven’t yet made your orchard available but intend to – please contact your CRM now.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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