Please accept this update to our growers and stakeholders up to Week 45.
The grower entities team has sent out the 2nd orchard gate return forecast to growers and these were reviewed at the Seeka Growers meeting last week. As previously signalled to you, there are significant changes in the forecast primarily reflecting far lower returns for the conventional varieties than those indicated by Zespri in their earlier forecast around the time of their Annual Shareholder Meeting.
The Hayward organic category has increased from the last forecast with our forecast compared against the industry impacted by lower proportion of Kiwistart and taste than industry average.
There are some unusual features in the forecast. The SunGold market returns are down by $0.35 per tray but this impact is weighted toward the larger sizes. Sizes 16 to 22 are down by $2.16 per tray between forecasts. Seeka has a larger size profile than the Industry and accordingly our fruit value has been hit slightly harder by the lower Zespri returns. It’s a startling variation this late in the season.
In the case of Hayward conventional, the market returns are down by $0.25 per tray in spite of lower fruit loss and again the larger sizes appear hit harder with sizes 18 to 22 down by $0.54 per tray.
Our team has made every effort to prepare and present an accurate forecast to you and they have tried to careful consider all the assumptions. But at the end of the day it is what it is, a forecast only. If you have any questions about it, please raise these with your client relationship manager,
Operationally, the season is at an end with the last Japanese charter vessel loading this week, and a few containers to Asia early next week. The season has not been without its challenges and our teams have worked together to achieve this seasons results. Our Hayward conventional fruit loss is slightly higher than the industry but this really only reflects that Seeka has aggressive chased opportunity to load out fruit and is closer to the end of the programme than it’s the rest of the Industry. At the end of last week Seeka had 17% of the remaining fruit on shore compared to its 25% market share.
And to the numbers at midnight Sunday end of week 45 [13/11/2016]
Oakside Insurance Settlement
Last week Seeka reached an agreement with the insurers for the settlement of the insurance claim for the losses associated with the mitigation efforts after the fire at the Oakside in 2015. This settlement pays for the advance made by Seeka Limited to Seeka Growers in 2015. No further monies are payable by Seeka to Seeka Growers in relation to this event and no monies are owed by Seeka Growers to Seeka. We are satisfied and relieved with this outcome and pleased to be able to put those events behind us.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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