Welcome to this week’s Seeka grower and stakeholder update. Please arrange a fine spell of weather so we can draw the 2021 harvest to a close. The combination of bad weather and severe lack of labour has frustrated the completion of harvest. We continue to scramble to safely get the last of the crop in with around 1.2m trays to harvest (1.5m including OPAC). We have closed some night shifts to free up the RSE’s so they can be deployed into the orchards to get the last of the crops in, as Seeka and our picking operators have lost labour. The Government’s strategy of moving people into higher paid jobs by limiting the supply of labour actually doesn’t help companies like Seeka who hire human beings to get the job done! There is a huge hidden cost to all this and the announcements last week of VISA extensions, and previous announcements of 300 extra RSE’s per month have done nothing to alleviate the pressure due to the conditions attached. I don’t need to tell you that it’s a tough gig in the productive side of the economy right now. So I guess there is a degree of frustration in this week’s blog to growers.
The Seeka Growers Council met yesterday to approve the final distributions for the 2020 season and to review the year to date distributions for 2021. The meeting also received presentations from the Zespri commercial and supply teams on the 2021 deliveries and sales progress. The Council has asked Zespri to reinstate more fulsome transparent reporting to growers in the style they used to receive. This reporting, while confidential to growers, would provide growers with the information for them to form their own view and assessment of the current sales performance and outlook. In all of this it is acknowledged that there are headwinds and tailwinds in the current year, but the commercial side of our industry needs better standard of reporting than we have been getting. The Council were left wondering how NZKGI can effectively monitor Zespri’s performance in the absence of such information. As an industry with a unique marketing structure, we need unique and transparent market reporting.
Finally, we are continuing to evaluate options to further automate our sheds to increase throughput and remove labour in addition to the announced projects at KKP and Transcool. There are good opportunities to invest and incrementally improve, so that we can deliver our growers a timely harvest, excellent returns and great service. The reality is that the domestic economy looks to be heading into a period of high inflation, fuelled by high energy prices, higher wages, and supply constraints. At the moment, we are defying gravity it and it can’t last. Costs are going up and going to continue to go up.
SunGold Conventional
|
Industry Submit: 99,851,091 trays |
Industry average size: 27.72 |
|
Seeka Submit: 17,469,984 trays |
Seeka average size: 27.38 |
SunGold Organic
|
Industry Submit: 2,527,823 trays |
Industry average size: 28.05 |
|
Seeka Submit: 424,166 trays |
Seeka average size: 29.12 |
Hayward Conventional
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Industry Submit: 63,378,125 trays |
Industry average size: 32.46 |
|
Seeka Submit: 14,987,681 trays |
Seeka average size: 32.40 |
Hayward Organic
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Industry Submit: 2,806,572 trays |
Industry average size: 34.76 |
|
Seeka Submit: 875,415 trays |
Seeka average size: 35.03 |
Sweet Green
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Industry Submit: 261,467 trays |
Industry average size: 37.07 |
|
Seeka Submit: 58,278 trays |
Seeka average size: 37.59 |
Happy and safe harvesting.
Kind regards
Michael
Seeka Key
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