Welcome to our grower and stakeholder update. Kiwifruit harvest 2021 is underway for SunGold in New Zealand and for Hayward in Australia.
Locally we have nearly every site open or about to open. Oakside, KKP, Huka Pak, Main Road Katikati and Kerikeri are all packing. Transpack opens today and Aongatete is ready and just waiting for fruit. Coromandel is ready but the fruit looks a little ways off. We have learned that a serious injury has occurred in the industry, where a person mowing an orchard has been caught in the lower jaw by a low hanging wire. This person is experienced and has worked in the industry for a long time, is expected to make a full recovery but it is an ugly and severe incident. It is a reminder to all of us to be aware of the hazards under the canopy.
Labour is ok to start the day shifts. However, we are still short and looking to fill vacancies at Main Road Katikati, Aongatete and Oakside. Our RSE contingent is steadily arriving now and these people are being and will be used to take the heat off the acute shortages.
The Zespri maturity clearance system is not yet 100%. This system was delivered much later than scheduled and immediately came under pressure with the earlier than predicted kiwistart fruit. The team at Zespri are scrambling to rectify the system, a process that mirrors last year.
We are also concerned that the TZG results from the Zespri maturity clearance system are much lower than our monitoring results (and Zespri monitoring) had predicted. Much, much lower particularly in Te Puke. Given the huge quantum of money appropriated through this mechanism – it’s vital for this system to have integrity in order to maintain grower confidence and for proper fiduciary processes to occur. Rather than bark on at Zespri, we have simply sent them a log of the issues, so at least they know the domain of their problem and I am sure they have all hands on deck sorting the problems out.
Thank you to those of you who have attended our After 5 updates, we have had record numbers attending. There have been many questions about the China Covid-19 requirements, hail insurance and the SunGold situation in China.
There is one important message from Seeka to its stakeholders as we head into harvest 21. The fruit monitor data is pointing to a fantastic crop in front of us. Fruit maturity is 7 to 10 days ahead, and fruit size looks great in both SunGold and Hayward, particularly relevant to those regions affected by drought last year. Harvest has commenced, the early crop is clean and the initiatives around sooty mould looks to have had a great affect.
Zespri has increased the SunGold conventional first-past- the-post supply cap to 10M trays, an increase of 2M trays. This increase is in response to strong demand.
The technical data and advice this year is as good as I can recall, and we have just avoided what could have been a significant hail event in Te Puke. So there are a number of things to be positive about.
In spite of all the challenges that we are facing (labour, systems, Covid-19, safety, capacity, costs) we are, including our contractors, confident of doing a great job for you and delivering the market with fantastic produce. That is what you pay us to do, and that’s our commitment to you.
To the numbers:
SunGold Conventional
|
Industry Submit: 2,300,889 trays |
Industry average size: 28.4 |
|
Seeka Submit: 280,162 trays |
Seeka average size: 27.5 |
SunGold Organic
|
Industry Submit: 24,851 trays |
Industry average size: 27.7 |
|
Seeka Submit: nil |
Seeka average size: nil |
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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