Welcome to this daily update to the growers and stakeholders of Seeka. This is a quick update to let you know what we are planning and how we are tracking. The production focus is moving from SunGold to concentrate on Hayward for the next few days, as there is heavy shipping demand for Hayward through the early stages of next week. The teams are working their way through the stock of harvested SunGold and changing into Hayward. The loadout crews are busy as we have out 1.4m trays to loadout this week and have on order 2.4m to loadout next week.
Around the middle of next week Seeka will bring the SunGold back into production, and will buffer fruit up ahead of the rain forecast for Wednesday/Thursday. Really we don’t want an over supply of lower brix and immature SunGold just now, but understand the balance of the larger self-pick growers needing to keep harvesting to retain labour. It’s a careful balancing act. Kiwistart is now completed for SunGold and we are looking for fruit with the potential to store.
The post harvest teams are bringing the productivity of the machines up as they get use to the screen installations and changes to the production systems. They are increasing the percentage of the crop packed into layered configuration which is better suited to Zespri’s market demand.
We remain short of labour particularly at the Te Puke based packhouses and Katikati. We are continuing to run short staffed, are looking for more people as we bring new shifts into production including nightshift. We are not the only post-harvest company very short of people and I was surprised to read that KGI in its latest mail out doesn’t think that there is a labour shortage. The shortage remains acute here on the ground. If you know of people looking for work please encourage them to ring 0800SEEKAJOBS.
The teams will work through the weekend, with most sheds taking Monday or Tuesday off.
To the numbers:
|
SunGold conventional trays |
Industry packed 23.9m |
Seeka 4.7m (20.1%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 29.3 |
Seeka 29.1 |
|
SunGold Organic trays |
Industry packed 249k |
Seeka 13k (5.5%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 30.8 |
Seeka 29.1 |
|
Hayward conventional trays |
Industry packed 3.0m |
Seeka 871k (28.3%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 33.6 |
Seeka 33.7 |
|
Sweet Green trays |
Industry packed 86k |
Seeka nil |
|
Average size |
Industry 37.9 |
Seeka nil |
Kind regards and thank you for your support
Michael
Seeka Key
Contacts