Welcome to our latest grower update, bringing you industry and Seeka . It’s been a relatively quiet two weeks as the teams concentrate on managing the inventory and pushing through to the end. While the SunGold fruit program is nearing completion, it’s still an important time of the year for Hayward. The teams are focussing on the fruit, assessing fruit condition, prioritising inventory for load out based on the assessments, and also checking that individual growers are not over exposed when we get to week 40. Week 40 has traditionally been an important date, as orders tend to slow and at that time our ability to actively manage the fruit lessens. Seeka Growers have for some time had a policy of self-underwriting the fruit still in store at the end of week 40 through a mechanism called the week 40 adjustment. This policy means that individual growers in store at the end of week 40 can do no worse through the pools than they would have if all their fruit had been loaded at week 41. This same mechanism exists for Gold but at the end of week 36.
It’s a great example of your council considering risk, and putting in place policies that fairly share returns and risk for the benefit of our growers.
Seeka has been considering its capacity plans for the coming years and believes that with the completion of the Oakside pre-coolers and coolstores, our capacity is set for the next two seasons crop demand including an allowance for upside growth. The current capital work underway is Stage 2 at Kerikeri which sees the demolition of the old packhouse, the construction of a new building to house pre-coolers and coolstores which will be progressively built over two years. At the moment the demolition of the old packhouse is underway. The rate of change at our Northland business has been impressive and the local growers have supported Seeka with a number of new sign ups to the Company across both kiwifruit and avocados. There is significant capacity at the Kerikeri site for future growth.
To the numbers:
Seeka
Aongatete
Aongatete fruitloss excludes fruit under the insurance claim.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts
