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Week ending Sunday 29 March 2020 Please accept our grower and stakeholder update for the week ended midnight last night. While it’s been a dynamic period of change actually Seeka and its growers have packed some 4.2m class 1 trays of kiwifruit and loaded out 1.854m trays. It’s been challenging with lower machine capacity and a tight labour supply, but our teams are adapting and getting the job done. We have focussed on what is important and not let ourselves get overly distracted by sideshows. Two big wins last week were the screens innovation at the drops and tray prep and the process around lab testing, maturity testing and clearances. The screen innovation will enable machine available capacity to return to closer to 100%. Simplifying and resetting the clearance process has meant that we can continue to clear and harvest fruit. The previous SunGold clearance, taste and colour protocols by size had got so complicated that no one should be surprised that the system fell over. On that theme, we have had some feedback from growers surprised to see Eurofins on their orchard. Eurofins are still required to collect residue samples from your orchard, and should be alerting you in advance. Our focus now is twofold; improving the machine efficiency previously impacted by the distancing rules and getting the labour in place to run all shifts. We are making good progress with general staff but key staff remains tight. Achieving these two goals will enable us to get the entire crop off within an acceptable timeframe and that is our mission. We have been coordinating closely with Blair Hamill at Zespri, to work through the process of sensibly lining up supply. We have already loaded 1.854m trays of SunGold. The reports are that the markets are ready for the fruit and we have heard from the apple industry that the fruit is flowing into the markets well, understanding and accepting that each country is in a different state of turmoil as they respond to the pandemic. It would appear that our healthy fruit, packed with vitamins, grown with minimal chemical intervention will find its way to consumers. Our job is to get all of our growers fruit harvested and packed, deliver it to the market in a quality and configuration that best suits their demand. Our teams and growers have done a fantastic job to date and are to be universally applauded. There are some funny stories to tell you all when we get past this rush and pressure point. To the numbers:
Michael |
Seeka Key
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