Welcome to this week’s edition of Frankly Speaking, updating our growers and stakeholders on the latest Seeka and Industry . Sunday 21 June signals the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, while the days will get longer the coldest part of the year is yet to come. Amazingly the Deep South has had very cold weather with temperatures well into the minus’s while at the same time in Tauranga it has been 17 degrees.
The kiwifruit inventory management season continues. Fruit quality has been ok and offshore quality good. It is still early days and the team has just completed their first round of pressure testing. In 2020, after all the challenges faced, we are just generally cautious. So far so good but we are carefully watching the fruit to ensure we load the fruit out in the right order. We are focussed on the fruit that came from the drought stressed areas. Drought is a theme for 2020 full stop, and its effects will be felt from orchard through to consumer.
Winter pruning is well underway and the feedback is that the RSE’s picked up from the Hawkes Bay have settled well and powering into the work. The proactive step taken to hire the 275 additional workers from the Hawkes Bay has filled our labour shortage, and also remedied part of the problem that was faced when they ran out of work in the apple industry and are unable to head home. Generally the feedback is that the cane we are tying down for next year’s canopy isn’t great.
The Industry is working through a number of issues that occurred during harvest including maturity testing and the consequences of the removal of taste. It’s a fraught set of challenges. There is a fantastic opportunity to rationalise our testing structure to one which is more equitable, cheaper, scalable and safer – so we are driving for those outcomes not wanting to waste the disaster we have just experienced and led the way through. Some early start growers have challenged Zespri about the consequences of the removal of taste. Those growers harvested thinking they were going to get a certain level of kiwistart premium, and that premium was greatly reduced when the necessary decision was taken to remove taste after the withdraw of Eurofins. At that time our sole focus was to complete the harvest and the outcome wasn’t at all certain. So the challenge is live and in play now. Your Seeka Grower Council is actively considering this matter – noting it is a topic where nearly everyone carries a bias.
A reminder that we have been fortunate to secure Adrian Orr, Governor of the Reserve Bank to give us an economic update on Wednesday 1 July at 2pm. You are welcome to attend in person at Seeka 360, Seeka Main Road, Seeka Peninsula, Seeka Kerikeri or virtually via Zoom, but you must register. Click the link here to register or talk to your CRM if you would like to attend and we would encourage you to.
To the numbers:
Kind regards,
Michael
Seeka Key
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