Welcome to this update of Frankly Speaking, our blog that keeps the growers and suppliers up to date with what’s happening at Seeka and the Industry. The Seeka Grower Council met via zoom yesterday and discussed the Gold pooling and kiwistart rates for 2020.
In spite of the numerous challenges, Seeka continues to operate smoothly. The season has been a little like that lone little boy facing a barrage of runners in the first round of a game of bull-rush. Slowly we are gaining momentum. Daily we are packing at or above our market share of SunGold, well above our market share for Hayward, and packing more than our share of layered pack types in both categories. The teams are making a big effort packing a new daily record for the year with 551k trays packed yesterday. This is remarkable as labour continues to be a constraint with both the general shortfall and turnover the big issues. Oakside, which employs around 420 seasonal staff per day, has recruited over 800 employees so far this year, our employee turnover is well over 200% higher when you consider that RSE’s continue to work every day.
Load-outs continue to be heavy with over 1.7m trays being shipped this week.
There are about 13 packing days to complete the SunGold Harvest. In order to get the job completed in a timely manner, all packing capacity at Seeka will swing to SunGold until the end of the harvest, with machines progressively coming back to Hayward as the SunGold harvest completes. The technical data indicates that Hayward is continuing to grow well, with late sizing outweighing any financial benefit the crops might earn if they were to harvest in the next two weeks. We understand the need to get to Hayward, but all the indications is that the crop will benefit from an extra two weeks on the vines.
It means that the SunGold harvest is forecast to complete in the days between 6 and 10 May, and Hayward to complete around 4 June. We have set clear criteria for the Hayward harvest, this will be coordinated centrally. The remaining SunGold is being scheduled and we may make adjustments to ensure an equitable, timely and orderly completion to that harvest.
As you might be aware a Kiwi Corral worker has tested positive for COVID-19. The DHB are in control of this situation, and have coordinated and communicated extremely well. The workers family and close contacts have been tested and have returned negative results. The DHB have advised that the chance of transmission is extremely low given our workers are not close contacts. As a precaution all people staying at the have been tested with results expected in the next 48 hours. Seeka had undertaken a risk assessment months ago and decided then to significantly reduce the concentration of workers staying at any one and as a result has a relatively a small number of people at the Kiwi Corral. We have taken appropriate action with these workers.
To the mid-week numbers:
| SunGold conventional trays | Industry packed 49.9m | Seeka 9.6m (19.3%) |
| Average size | Industry 29.4 | Seeka 29.3 |
| SunGold Organic trays | Industry packed 881k | Seeka 73k (11.6%) |
| Average size | Industry 30.3 | Seeka 29.6 |
| Hayward conventional trays | Industry packed 14.5m | Seeka 4.4m (30.3%) |
| Average size | Industry 33.4 | Seeka 33.3 |
| Hayward Organic trays | Industry packed 634k | Seeka 164k (29.5%) |
| Average size | Industry 37.2 | Seeka 37.7 |
| Sweet Green trays | Industry packed 230k | Seeka 18k (8%) |
| Average size | Industry 37.9 | Seeka 36.9 |
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