Welcome to this week’s Seeka grower and stakeholder update. Seeka had set itself a target of packing 3m trays in week 16 to be on track to achieve a timely completion to harvest and 3.2m was achieved. Most sites are packing at 90% of what they packed prior to COVID-19, and continue to pack a high percentage of layered packed product for Zespri. They are doing so short staffed and maintaining full COVID-19 hygiene and distancing provisions.
Over the last week we took monitor samples from lines of SunGold fruit packed at Oakside and the average brix at packing was 10.25 brix up from the 10.18 brix average the week prior. The highest monitor result was 13.2 brix and some of the Brix results in the 9’s. We are just past the halfway mark of the SunGold harvest. Fruit harvested now may be expected to store and it seems we are heading to the fruit which is ideally positioned for storage.
The brix conversion analysis shows that the fruit is not as mature as the brix levels suggests and we are setting the ideal range between 10.5 and 13.5 for storage this year. SunGold fruit is generally firmer than 2019. Softs have not been a feature this year, we have probably experienced less soft fruit than last year in spite of everyone telling us this year their fruit is going soft and last year there was no soft fruit as growers chased dry matter.
All sheds are really hitting their straps in packing and the improvements throughputs are remarkable given the continuing labour shortage. The table below shows our packing statistics as at midnight last night – year on year:
Overall Seeka has packed 12.537m trays to date. All the Hayward volumes to date have been allocated by Zespri so the fact we are behind year on year is not a reflection of performance and our technical team has been telling us that the Hayward maturity appears to be 7 to 10 days later with late fruit sizing continuing.
As we work through the harvest, the next stages of the SunGold Harvest is focussed on building inventory and packing fruit that will store. The schedulers and inventory managers are pivotal now to ensuring the optimal harvest of remaining lines of SunGold fruit and are best positioned to make those calls. Some of the early Hayward crops we have packed this year have had issues with sooty mould and shape. Tidy up work has been underway on blocks to be able to present the packhouse an easier packing experience. This work is appreciated where required.
Pleasingly early load-out and shipping is ahead of last year. Seeka has loaded 7.381m trays of fruit to the market, well ahead of last year’s 6.446m trays. 838k trays of SunGold and 834k trays of Hayward conventional will loadout this week along with 84k trays of Hayward organic.
Our capacity planning shows that we are on track for early and respectable harvest end dates.
To the numbers:
|
SunGold conventional trays |
Industry packed 42.8m |
Seeka 8.2 (19.2%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 29.4 |
Seeka 29.3 |
|
Seeka in store |
3.4m |
On order 1.1m |
|
SunGold Organic trays |
Industry packed 774k |
Seeka 72k (9.4%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 30.1 |
Seeka 29.17 |
|
Seeka in store |
42k |
On order 11.5k |
|
Hayward conventional trays |
Industry packed 13.9m |
Seeka 4.0m (29.1%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 33.5 |
Seeka 33.5 |
|
Seeka in store |
1.6m |
On order 1.0m |
|
Hayward Organic trays |
Industry packed 595k |
Seeka 164k (27.6%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 37.63 |
Seeka 37.7 |
|
Seeka in store |
117k |
On order 90k |
|
Sweet Green trays |
Industry packed 230k |
Seeka 18.4k (8.0%) |
|
Average size |
Industry 37.9 |
Seeka 36.9 |
|
Seeka in store |
816k |
On order nil |
Seeka Key
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