Welcome to this afternoons Frankly Speaking Update. In this update, I will explain to you how we are going to organise the next phase of the harvest, understanding that these mechanisms are to be approved by the IAC and Zespri Board, which I expect to occur around midday today. At the same time we are going through the process of registering our business with MPI. We understand that every orchard has to be registered, along with all essential service providers. If you need help in registering please talk to your CRM and we will guide you through it. We have a team in the Company that is working through the registration, and understands the responses. This is particularly important if you haven’t harvested yet. We have stopped all non-essential on-orchard work, and limited our orchard activities only to the provision of fruit into the food chain. Given the lock-down protocols, we consider that to be correct and prudent right now.
Seeka will be clear in its communication and disciplined in transitioning maturity testing from Eurofins to our own lab functions. We will have lab functions operating at Kerikeri, Main Road Katikati and VLS. We are just bringing the capability up now (noting that we already had it in place in Kerikeri and VLS), changing the systems and livening them up, understanding our capacities and reporting processes. We will get that done today. We will carefully calibrate sampling to the capacity of the labs, and will keep our sheds going. The distancing protocols have the potential to have real impact on shed capacities, but already the innovators are coming up with smart ideas which may result in Seeka achieving the double – distancing and capacity. We will share these ideas; this is not a time for partisan behaviour.
All samples in the Eurofins system reported through will be accepted as per normal. We are working through the process to pack the fruit in canopy that had a manual clearance. We are also checking for missing samples, lost samples, incomplete reporting and the confusion that exists about Eurofins withdraw of service.
All samples from here are a 30 fruit sample for each maturity area. Each post-harvest operator may collect its own samples or arrange the collection of samples by Growers subject to them complying with their own lockdown rules. We are establishing our testing capacity and will regulate the testing to what we can do while maintaining the separation rules. It is likely that we will schedule all the clearances centrally based on historical clearance.
From here on out – here is how we are going to run:
SunGold Conventional and organic
Colour threshold of 108.6 and brix fractile of 5.0 or better until midnight Friday April 3
After Friday April 3 only average brix better than 8.0
It’s kind of as simple as that, there are no dry matter thresholds or payments this year
The kiwistart rates and time rates are being reset by Zespri now for the entire year
Hayward conventional and organic
The maturity criteria is straight black seeds and brix
For First Past the Post (FPP), where Zespri was looking for 8m trays across the Industry – there will be 2 two weekly allocations (rather than a race) and these allocations will be made to a supplier based on the FPP average market share over the last 3 years. This will allow for regional variation. At this stage lower brix fractile of 4.7 or better and black seeds better than 97%.
After the 8m trays, for the rest of Period 1 we then go to allocated volume based on market share.
Mainpack clearances, average brix 6.2 or better with not more than 9 fruit below 5.7 brix…
Zespri will reset the kiwistart and time rates for the entire year.
We will publish new indicative kiwistart rates when we have them and we communicate the hazy parts of this email as soon as we have clarity.
There is a lot of change going on right now in the Industry as we reset ourselves, both for the impact of the Eurofins withdraw and the impact of COVID-19, the distancing requirements and increased hygiene. We understand that the change to the kiwistart rates from those previously indicated, and the removal of taste this year will be creating stress and tension to those impacted. The reality is that there is no choice. The plan is sound.
It is critical that we achieve the protocols set by the Government and thereby maintain the license to operate, and more importantly starve the virus out. Nothing we do can jeopardise that.
We will continue to communicate openly and operate in the best interests of all growers. Thank you to the many supportive messages we have received across the company. It is appreciated by all involved in the process of maintaining service.
My kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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